


Maria's Adventures: Strong World

by CrossingTheFourthWall



Series: Maria's Adventures [15]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, originally written/posted in early 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossingTheFourthWall/pseuds/CrossingTheFourthWall
Summary: Thriller Bark wasn't such a big deal. Now, though, Maria and the Straw Hats have entered into another problem: one that involves more hints at Maria's past, floating islands, and a man with a wheel stuck in his head who doesn't know what he's getting into.





	1. A Flying Golden Lion?

**Maria's POV**

"Guys! You might want to see this!"

I looked up from my Berry trees when I heard Nami's concerned, panicked voice. She hadn't sounded that concerned since we had been running around on Thriller Bark about two weeks ago. Since then, the only really exciting thing that had happened was Brook causing havoc all across the deck while he was trying to "find a way to fit in."

I'm glad that Robin and I managed to talk some sense into him before he went completely overboard.

"What is it, Nami?" I jumped down the stairs, getting the others to glance in my direction. I'd been experimenting with my abilities over the last few days and had found out that I could change the color and graphic design of my clothes if I thought about it hard enough. While my jeans were still blue and my shoes were still white with three red stripes on either side, my jacket had turned a bright yellow and I had managed to get our pirate mark on a plain white shirt somehow.

Luffy really liked the changing colors trick -- mainly because I was making a habit of wearing our crew's mark every few days or so.

Nami looked over at me as I landed on the lawn of the deck; there was a newspaper in her hands, and she looked kind of worried.

"Have a look at this." Nami handed me the newspaper and pointed me towards the headline on the front.

I looked down, at the newspaper in my hands before frowning and reading the headline aloud. "Danger: The Deadly Mystery of Disintegrating Towns in the East Blue."

"Hold on -- what's happening in the East Blue?" Luffy came over, bare-chested wearing a fuzzy orange scarf around his neck. He looked over my shoulder at the newspaper while I looked over at him.

"I'm not sure," I commented. "That's all that the headline says, at least. It doesn't sound good, though."

"Evidently a bunch of places are being wiped out overnight," Nami said worriedly as Luffy took the newspaper from my hands.

"H-hey, let me see!" Usopp motioned for Luffy to come over to where he was sitting on the bench around the mast; our captain moved over and sat down next to the sniper, who leaned over in order to have a better look at what was in Luffy's hands.

"Wiped out overnight?" I repeated, startled.

"Looks like our islands haven't been affected for the time being, but...." Nami trailed off worriedly. "...who knows? It might not stay that way for long."

"Your islands?" I repeated, blinking in confusion.

"Nearly half of our crew are originally from the East Blue," Chopper piped up from where he stood on one of the staircases. He was wearing what looked like a little pink bathrobe with a bear faced-hood, and looked absolutely adorable. "Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp."

I blinked. I hadn't been told that...oh, boy.

"I can see why they're worried," Brook remarked from where he was standing on the other side of the stair's railing.

"Oh -- you too, right, Sanji?" Chopper looked over at our cook, who was sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

Sanji too?

"Well, yeah, more or less," Sanji responded, glancing back at the reindeer. "I was born in the North Blue, but I was raised in the East Blue." He took a drag on his cigarette.

It took me a moment to remember where exactly in the world each of the "Blue Seas" were. They surrounded the Grand Line -- taking the four corners of the world...so, Luffy probably met Usopp, Nami, Zoro, and Sanji before he ended up entering the Grand Line. I think that's how it ended up going, what with what they told me of their adventures _on_ the Grand Line....

"Hmm? What is that? A meteorite?"

I turned my head when I heard Usopp's voice, and I moved over and looked over Luffy's shoulder at the picture that was on the front page. There were a bunch of small people in Marine uniforms looking over what looked like a pair of gigantic rocks.

"That's weird," I remarked, frowning.

Something rumbled above us, and the sun suddenly disappeared. I looked up sharply when I heard the noise -- as did everyone else -- and a simultaneous gasp arose from all of us when we saw what was coming for us.

"Wh-what the--" I stared up in shock as flashes of an island in the sky and a large, emerald jewel appeared at the back of my mind.

"An island?" Nami asked in shock.

I blinked, seeing the golden lion that was stuck to the front of the chunk of rock that was hovering over us. I had thought for a moment that it had been Knuckles the Echidna's Angel Island, but that lion and the oars that were sticking out on either side shot that thought down immediately.

"Yeah, but islands don't _fly_ like that!" Luffy responded to Nami's question. "Do they?"

"Some do," I muttered, Angel Island still on my mind. "Or, _did_ , considering that Angel Island was grounded a long time ago."

As the shadow of the island past over us, Nami turned and ran up the stairs to the front of the ship. Franky -- who was wearing a banana on his head for some reason -- ran to the helm as the rest of us scrambled up the stairs after our navigator.

"It has sails!" Robin identified, coming to a stop next to Franky.

"Not to mention those oars," I added, coming up to the archeologist. I eyed the yellow-ish sails that were barely visible over the edge of the island, wondering what kind of person added sails to a floating island like that.

"Think it's some kind of ship?" Franky asked, looking up at the floating island above us.

"They've got a Jolly Roger!"

I turned my head and looked over at Usopp, noticing that he had a spyglass in his hands as he looked up at the island above us. I looked back up at the floating island above us. "But...then that means...."

"It's a flying island pirate ship?" Sanji asked.

"But who would be able to make an island into a pirate ship -- and a flying one, at that?" I asked. "I've heard of things that are able to do that, but it'd take a lot of power in order for something of that size to work...."

No way was I mentioning the Chaos Emeralds -- or going into more information about the Atlantean Crystals -- with Nami around. Not until I know for sure she isn't going to try and steal either one of them if we ever did find them.

The Mother Crystal would _probably_ be safe, but the Chaos Emeralds...?

"We've gotta change direction, Luffy!" Nami shouted. "We're headed straight towards a cyclone!"

"A what?" I turned and looked back at Nami in surprise. "How can you tell?"

"The wind feels wrong," Nami replied, sparing a glance in my direction.

"Okay then, but first we gotta warn those guys about it." Luffy turned and started shouting upward. "HEY!! YOU'RE HEADING FOR A CYCLONE!!"

"W-wait!" Usopp called out in a panic. "Don't yell at those guys!"

"Why not?" I asked, looking over at Usopp.

"Not all pirates are like us," Usopp responded, turning to look at me. "They could end up attacking us because we're trying to get their attention!"

I frowned at that, then remembered that what Usopp said might be right. After all, the citizens of Water 7 _were_ pretty insistent that pirates were villains who only cared about looting and killing. The did tend to cause a lot of trouble in the docks....

"HEEEEYYY!! Huh?"

I looked over at where Luffy was standing on the figurehead, blinking in confusion when he stopped yelling. I caught sight some something small and kinda orangish-colored coming down from the sky and towards Luffy.

"Wh-what is it, Luffy?" Usopp asked nervously. It looked like he was ready to get into a karate fight, but I don't think that he's really able to do that kind of thing.

"Hey, Nami!" Luffy turned and tossed the orange thing in the direction of our navigator, and Nami caught it easily.

Usopp and I dashed over to see what Nami was holding.

"Huh, it's a Tone Dial!" Usopp identified in surprise.

"So, I guess this means we aren't the only ones who've taken a trip to Skypiea," Sanji commented.

"That's the Sky Island, right?" When Usopp nodded at my question, I looked up at the floating island again. "I guess that makes sense, since their ship can fly around like that...."

"Don't freak out, you guys," Luffy said, coming back towards us. "Nami?"

"Okay." Nami tightened her grip on the Tone Dial for a moment before pressing down on one end and speaking into it. "There's a cyclone approaching! Turn your ship ninety degrees to port!"

Nami released the button and nodded to Luffy, who took the Tone Dial and ran back to the figurehead, where he threw it back up at the ship.

I blinked in surprise when I saw the Tone Dial suddenly curve and disappear from sight. "You didn't throw it to curve like that, did you, Luffy?"

Luffy didn't answer my question. "All right, you guys! Follow Nami's directions and get us away from that cyclone!"

"Right!" Everyone scattered across the deck while Franky and Nami stayed near the helm. Zoro shimmied up the mast and stayed near the sails while Sanji ran to the back -- to the red and black sail that happened to be there. It didn't take us too long before the ship turned in the direction that Nami had directed -- 90 degrees to port, or to the left.

We just barely made it in time.

As I looked back and above us, I stared in shock at the black storm clouds that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere as the wind really started to pick up. The floating island was nearly knocked out by it, but just managed to miss the tornado that formed rather abruptly.

We weren't nearly out of the storm yet, though -- the black clouds really extended for a long way, and the wind was still pretty strong, despite the fact that we had managed to miss the worst of it. We continued to run across the deck and make sure that everything was all right before we managed to clear the storm clouds.

"Whoo!" I wiped at my forehead with a jacket sleeve as Zoro slid down the mast. "That was a close one. Thanks for the warning, Nami."

"Just doing my job," Nami replied with a smile as she came down onto the main deck.

"Nami-swan is the best when it comes to predicting the weather!" Sanji exclaimed, dancing over to us as the rest of the crew came down onto the main deck.

Luffy laughed. "Yeah! That's why she's our navigator!"

I grinned and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, definitely."

"It seems that the flying island above us is bringing company," Robin remarked, looking upward.

"Huh?" I looked over at the dark-haired woman for a moment, then followed her gaze. My jaw dropped in surprise when I saw what was coming down onto the ship. "What in the name of the Grand Line...?"

A man with _half a ship's wheel in his head_ and _swords for legs_ slowly lowered down from the sky and landed on the bench that went around our mast. And he was wearing some kind of large orange and yellow robe -- over a brown, green, and red outfit -- that seemed to match his yellow hair pretty well. It almost looked like it was supposed to be a mane of some kind.

"Did he...did he just fly down here?" Luffy asked in shock.

"H-he did," Usopp whimpered in confirmation.

I pulled my jaw up. "That's not normal."

"I am Captain Shiki, the Golden Lion, a fellow pirate!" the man in front of us declared, arms folded across his chest. He started to look around. "Now, who recorded the message on that Tone Dial?"

I didn't like the tone of voice he was using. It sounded like he was trying to threaten us.

Usopp glanced back at Nami, who had a nervous expression as she raised a hand.

"Uh, yeah, that was me," Nami said.

Shiki's eyes drilled in on Nami, and I stiffened, expecting him to try and attack us. Instead, a strange smirk appeared on his face. "So, you're the one, Baby Doll. Well, I thank you."

I stiffened up and let out a spluttering noise when I heard what Shiki called Nami. _Baby Doll?_ Seriously?

"Uh..sure," Nami replied, sounding uncertain. Something told me that she wasn't sure about what she had just been called, either.

"Hey, Flying Guy," Luffy spoke up. He pointed upward. "How'd you get that island to float?"

"Hmm? Ah!" Shiki glanced up. "You mean my ship." He looked back at us. "That's thanks to the power of the Float Float Fruit. I can manipulate the gravity of any object I touch, no matter how large or small. I'll give you an example."

Shiki stepped off the bench and walked over to a small bar of weights that Zoro had been working with earlier. Then he touched it (making some kind of popping noise) before taking a step back, allowing the rest of us to move forward a little in order to get a better look at what he was about to do.

I had to admit, I was a little curious as to what this Devil Fruit user was going to do with Zoro's weights. Just from what I had seen of Zoro working with it earlier, I had to guess that it had to weigh somewhere north of a hundred pounds at least, so there's no way that I'd be able to lift it.

Shiki made a motion with the hand he had touched Zoro's weight with, and it promptly shot up into the air.

"Whoa!" I took a slight step back out of surprise, watching as the weight went high up above our heads -- about even with our Jolly Roger, actually -- before it suddenly dropped down.

Zoro didn't even move his stance an inch as it came careening towards him. He just raised an arm and caught the weight without an issue. I think the rest of the deck ended up shaking, though.

I whistled. "Wow. That's got to be one handy Devil Fruit."

"Whoa! Awesome!" Luffy turned and looked at Shiki. "Hey, now make me float! I wanna float!"

"Me too, me too!" Chopper piped up in agreement.

Shiki looked over at our captain, amused. "Jihahahaha! No can do. It doesn't work on humans. I can make myself float, but that's about it."

"Well, that's kinda lame," Luffy muttered.

"Boo! Boo!" Usopp and Chopper agreed.

"Sorry to disappoint." Shiki moved and sat down on the bench.

"Well, having gravity removed from a person could make something nasty happen," I remarked, recalling something suddenly. "I think I heard something from somewhere that said that, if we were put in an area that had no gravity, we'd end up exploding because of the pressure from inside our bodies."

"Exploding?!" Usopp looked at me in shock. "O-okay, I guess that it's all right if we can't float."

"I don't wanna explode, either!" Chopper added, shaking his head.

Shiki laughed at my comment. "Hey, you're a pretty smart girl! I think there may be sights in my hideout I think you might enjoy -- and that goes for the rest of you, too." He looked around at the rest of the crew. "Why don't you join me there, as a sign of my gratitude?"

"Thanks, but no."

I looked over at Luffy, blinking. Shiki was offering us a chance to explore and Luffy wasn't taking it?

"I'd like to, but we're in a big rush to get to the East Blue right now," Luffy added.

"Huh?" I intoned along with the rest of the crew.

"We what?" Nami asked.

Usopp grabbed the teal whistle hanging around his neck and blew it at Luffy, getting our captain's attention. "Whoa, back up! Did you forget about our adventure?"

"It's not going anywhere," Luffy responded, smiling slightly. "We can start over at any time. Your home town might get destroyed. You don't want to do anything about that?"

Luffy definitely had a good point.

Usopp blinked. "Well, uh...when you put it that way...."

"It's decided, then." Sanji lifted his lighter and lit his cigarette.

"Seriously?" Nami asked.

"Uh...I guess we should," Usopp remarked. He looked around. "And everyone's okay with this?"

"I don't see why not," I remarked, shrugging. "I mean, this is your home that we're talking about." I definitely wouldn't want to see anything that I called home hurt in any way.

That particular thought made my chest ache for some reason, but I didn't get any memories as a result of it.

"Well, good then." Usopp nodded in my direction.

"There you have it." Luffy looked over at Shiki. "Thanks for the offer, though."

Shiki, who had his head bent, looked up slightly. "I like you even more now! So you guys call the East Blue your home, huh? I've heard of what's happening there. I can only imagine how worried you must be. That settles it. I'll use my Float powers, and take you there right away."

I stared at Shiki in surprise. He had only just met us, and he was willing to help us out?

"No way!" Luffy grinned widely. "You mean it? Wow, thanks! You're a really nice guy!"

"It's my pleasure," Shiki replied, grinning around the cigar in his mouth.

"Man, talk about returning a favor," Sanji commented.

"No kidding," I agreed, looking at the cook.

Luffy turned and looked at Usopp and Chopper. "All right! We're heading home, guys! Get ready to fight!"

"Yeah!" the three of them yelled together.

"Can't we talk about this some more?" Nami demanded.

I chuckled. "When the captain sets his mind to something, it's kind of hard for the rest of us to change his mind, right?"

Robin chuckled in agreement.

Shiki seemed amused by our comments, and he reached over and touched the mast, making that popping noise again. It wasn't too long before I felt the _Sunny_ shift under our feet, and we started to rise up into the sky at a pretty decent speed.

Instinctively, I summoned my phoenix staff in order to make sure that I had something to hold onto in order to keep my balance as we rose up to equal height with Shiki's floating island-ship. That action got me a look from Shiki, and he looked almost...interested.

"That's an interesting weapon you have there," Shiki commented as the _Sunny_ leveled off. "Did you eat a Devil Fruit as well?"

I hesitated for a moment, still not exactly liking the tone he was taking and taking a moment to remember what the Marines had thought I'd done. "Yeah. A Staff Staff one -- the Magician model."

"Staff Staff? Can't say that I've heard of a Devil Fruit like that before." Shiki moved forward, looking interested.

"I haven't heard of a Float Float one before, either," I responded.

"Jihahahahaha! A good point! Tell me, do you have a name among the Marines?"

"We all do!" Luffy piped up. He paused. "Well, everybody except for Usopp." He grinned widely. "And Maria's got a 25 million bounty!"

Usopp muttered something in the background; I think he was saying something about Sogeking's bounty or something like that. Of course.

"They call me Fire Staff," I added, wondering if that was what Shiki was looking for.

"Fire Staff Maria, eh?" Shiki sounded odd as he spoke. I wasn't exactly sure whether this was how he usually talked or if he had something on his mind.

Either way, I was starting to think that something was...off...about this guy.

**Time Break**

Luffy laughed as he looked out over the deck railing. "We're flying!"

"The wind feels nice," Chopper agreed from where he stood on the railing.

Usopp just laughed in a giddy fashion.

Shiki ended up going over to his ship for a while, and before he came back, the guys had all taken the chance to change into clothes that were more suitable for the battle in the East Blue that was coming. They even managed to get Robin and I to change our outfits a little. I'd gotten my jacket to change from yellow to orange, and my shirt didn't have the Straw Hat mark on it anymore -- instead, it had changed to red and had a blue sawblade-like design on the front -- Sonic the Hedgehog's distinctive mark.

"You guys don't look like you're too concerned about getting ready for battle," Nami remarked, frowning at the three of them. She was the only one out of all of us who hadn't changed clothes.

"Indeed," Brook agreed. "Sharpen up, you guys -- you're not even wearing proper battle attire."

I raised an eyebrow at Brook's comment and looked over the orange, black, and white outfit that looked like something a hippie might wear. "Are you sure that _you're_ wearing the right kind of outfit?"

"You look more relaxed than anybody!" Nami barked in agreement.

I hummed slightly and looked around at everyone else. Considering that Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, and Luffy were all wearing hats, it made me wish that I had a hat of my own. The last one I had was the red and orange one that Paulie had gotten me in Water 7, and something about this particular day made me wish that I had a hat.

I felt something start to dig into my left hip in one of my jeans pockets, and I reached in and pulled out...a hat. It was red most of the way around -- except for the front, where it was a patch of white and Sonic's mark. It was the hat that I had worn on my Pokemon journey.

I jammed it onto my head as Chopper yelled something.

"Hey, there's something up ahead!"

I turned my head when I heard the reindeer's exclamation, then looked over at what was ahead of us. It took us a bit to manage to look around Shiki's island ship, though.

"Ah...that's a lot of floating islands." I rubbed the strap of my orange satchel absently, then gasped in surprise. "Some of them even have water surrounding them! How is that possible?"

"Whoa, this is blowing my mind!" Luffy's jaw was open wide as we flew past the islands.

I came over to the railing myself and looked down at the islands that were passing below us.

"It doesn't look like there's any sense at all to these," I muttered to myself, looking up and back down again. "How did these get into the sky like this? There's no way that--"

"Are you making every single one of these islands float with your powers?!" Usopp interrupted me, looking over at where Shiki was standing a short distance away.

"Uh huh," Shiki replied, sounding proud of himself. "Guilty as charged."

"These many islands, with your abilities?" I stared at him in surprise. "Doesn't it wear away at your energy?"

Shiki shook his head. "Once I make something float, it keeps on floating until I change my mind."

"Whoa..." Usopp sounded amazed. I didn't blame him. Something like this normally took a lot of power, and this wasn't draining Shiki _at all?_

If my Mobian friends were here, they'd probably insist that he's using all seven Chaos Emeralds or something like that.

"Whoa, that island is huge!" Luffy looked up at the island ahead of us, and I followed his gaze. I blinked a couple times when I saw the large piece of rock and the ring of water that went around it.

"Seriously, how in the world did he manage to get an island to float?" I muttered. "Aren't they usually attached to the ocean floor? How in the world did they manage to get detached?"

Shiki muttered something, then turned and walked over to stand in the center of the deck -- right next to me and Nami.

I became somewhat wary as he gave the two of us a dark look of some kind.

Shiki stretched his arms to either side of him. "Welcome to Merville! You couldn't find a better home for adventurers such as yourselves! I'm sure you'll all enjoy it once you settle in!"

What the--

Before I could even react to what Shiki had said, he wrapped his arm around Nami and grabbed my shoulder, causing a popping sound --

Wait, _what?_

"Hey!" Luffy started running towards us.

Before I could process what was happening, Shiki slammed his free hand into the deck and pushed it down, leaving him, Nami, and me floating in the air.

"I thought you couldn't make humans float!" I yelled at Shiki. I tried to move away from him by swimming through the air -- again, thank Water 7 for making sure that I could remember how to swim. But...for some reason...I wasn't able to get anywhere! I was being kept in place in the middle of the air!

"Nami! Maria!" Luffy yelled.

"Your navigator and your magician are mine!" Shiki roared down at the falling ship and our crewmates.

"Luffy!" Nami and I yelled down at them.

Our captain brought back a fist and sent a rubbery arm flying towards us -- clearly, he was planning on taking Shiki out so that he could release us.

"Jihahahaha!" Shiki started twirling a finger. At the same time, the _Sunny_ started spinning around uncontrollably.

"No! Guys!" I desperately wanted to get down there, stop the ship, do _something,_ but Shiki's powers were keeping me completely immobilized! I tried to point myself downward and start kicking at the air, but I couldn't even point my head downward.

The helpless sensation that I was getting from being trapped _in midair_ didn't exactly help matters, either -- especially when the mast of the ship rammed into everybody and sent them flying in all directions!

"No!" I yelled.

"Luffy!" Nami screamed. "You guys!"

Shiki kept right on laughing. I turned sharply to look at him -- at least I could control my body that much -- and brought out my staff before I started to summon my fire.

"Why you--" I was absolutely seething. "I ought to burn every inch of your hair off you and leave you bald!"

"Ah ah ah." Shiki wagged a finger at me. "You do that, from this height, and I will drop your precious navigator."

"Why you -- why are you doing this?!" I motioned to myself, glaring at him while I gritted my teeth. "You said you couldn't lift people!"

"I said I couldn't lift _humans_." There was a strange glint in Shiki's eye, and he started moving up towards the large island, motioning for me to follow him and the captive Nami.

I felt something pull at my gut, and I let out a gasp as I was pulled after them. It felt like there was some kind of invisible string pulling me along.

"What do you mean by that?" Nami barked in response. "Maria's just as human as the rest of us!"

Shiki laughed again -- a taunting laugh, like he knew something that the rest of us didn't. He didn't elaborate on what exactly it was that he knew, though, which caused me to grit my teeth.

My dislike of this guy had shot up to an all-time high. As soon as we hit that island he was taking us to, I was going to try to get away from him as fast as possible.


	2. A Week Later

**Maria's POV**

_Pain in my arms -- blue liquid -- melting -- "Continue experimenting" -- I am NOT a toy -- fire -- explosions -- "I'll take you all down! White Flare!" -- Pure anger -- blurs of yellow, red, white, green, blue -- BOOM_

**Memory Break**

I woke up with a gasp, then looked around wildly to as I tried to remember where I was.

I blinked a couple times when I registered where exactly I had ended up, and the panicked feeling in my chest changed to annoyance.

After Shiki had dragged me and Nami off, he had pushed me at this guy who looked like a clown -- Indigo, I think his name was -- and had told him that he could do a bunch of experiments on me. Everything after that ended up turning into a blur of color and anger so bad that it felt like I was burning myself out from the inside.

And that made my memory really flaky after Indigo started pulling needles out of his lab coat.

"Stupid Shiki," I groused, rubbing my head. I grabbed my hat from where I had been using it as a pillow and slammed it down onto my head. "Stupid nightmares."

I'd been reliving that escaping instance over and over in my head for the past few nights, and each time it had given me a flash of something else -- a dim lab, a more bright one that seemed more friendly...and then one that seemed to involve a lot more pain than what that Indigo guy ended up doing to me.

I looked around at where I was, sending dark glares at anyone who would even think about looking in my direction.

I was sitting in a cage (it was only tall enough that I could sit upright) in what looked like a really big bar of some kind...and there were some groups of pirates that were sitting around, eating and drinking. Considering that the cage and the building were made out of _wood,_ I probably would have been able to break out no problem.

But, Shiki had ordered a pair of Sea Stone cuffs slammed on my ankles.

"Hey --"

I shot a small fireball at the pirate who had been speaking, sending him running off while screaming for water for his burning beard.

 _"Dummkopfs,"_ I muttered. _"Alles sind dummkopfs."_

Oh, yeah. I had taken to speaking in another language occasionally when I was annoyed. I basically just said that they're all idiots.

And I finally found out that Sea Stone does absolutely nothing to reduce my abilities. But the only reason I hadn't acted more than I already had was that Sea Stone is _really_ strong, so I couldn't break out and get very far so long as I had the cuffs on.

I scowled. I managed to get away from Shiki, and he just does that touch-and-float thing and sticks me in here a few days later -- _and_ I had lost my satchel sometime along the way.

Stupid pirate's definitely asking for a burning when I manage to get out of this.

But first, I needed to get out.

Something hit the bar behind my head, but I didn't turn my head as a tray with a chunk of bread and meat, with a mug of water was slipped through the bars and into my cage.

"How can you do that with Sea Stone on your ankles?" asked a girl's voice.

I glanced over, meeting the eyes of the redhead who had asked the question. She flinched back a bit.

I let out a sigh, then moved my attention away from her. I had been feeling really grumpy for the past few days -- even more so than I've ever felt before. It kinda felt unnatural and natural at the same time, though, and that made some small part of me uneasy.

Still, I wasn't about to let her go without an answer.

"I don't know," I muttered quietly, seeing the girl move away from me out of the corner of my eye. The statement seemed to make her pause, but then she kept moving.

I glanced over and watched her go, eyeing the feathers that were on her arms. It almost looked like she was growing wings -- her and all the other young women who were serving the pirates.

I picked up the chunk of bread and started gnawing on it. It felt like it was a few days old, but it only tasted stale, not necessarily bad. The meat, luckily, looked and tasted fresher. The water wasn't bad, either.

None of it was as good as Sanji's cooking, though.

I finished off the plate and pushed it away from me -- towards the bars, where someone would pick it up later. I remained where I was near the back -- not touching the bars, legs crossed. I couldn't move too much further than that because of the chains that were stuck on my ankles. I was practically sitting on top of them, since they were so thick and heavy.

"Hey, is that one of the Straw Hat pirates?"

I didn't even twitch when I heard the question from one of the nearby pirates. I'm sure that my eyes spoke volumes right now, so I just moved them to look in the direction of the speaker. A pirate who looked like he had a handlebar mustache that looked too small for his face was standing near one of the waitresses.

"Maybe? I don't know." The girl shrugged. "She caused a lot of damage to Shiki's palace a week ago, and they only managed to catch her three days ago."

"She looks just like her wanted poster." The man grinned wickedly. "I heard that she's a wanted criminal who escaped from Enies Lobby when they declared war on the World Government. If the Golden Lion managed to capture her, then he's got to be pretty strong."

My gaze soured. Being stuck in a cage for three days wasn't what I liked to call fun, and those rumors weren't exactly helping my mood, because they were all lies. Had I _not_ been in my cage and was actually walking around freely instead, I might have thought that what the pirate had said was almost amusing.

I'm sure that the pirate could feel my gaze, because he looked over at me and froze.

 _"Dummkopf,"_ I announced, glaring at him.

The pirate glared at me. He was probably going to give a retort of some kind, but I just formed a fireball and flicked it at him. His too-small handlebar mustache was promptly lit aflame at one end, causing him to let out a yell of alarm.

The waitress next to him let out a sigh and poured a pitcher of water over his head. "She does that to anyone with facial hair who gets close."

"And she isn't wearing Sea Stone handcuffs?!" The pirate gaped at the waitress.

"I-I think she actually is...."

"Eh??!"

I rolled my eyes at the exclamation, then closed my eyes and went about ignoring them.

That is, until something tapped me on my left shoulder.

I cracked an eye open, then stiffened when I saw what had tried to get my attention: an arm, an ear, and an eye. Without a human attached to it.

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Robin?" I asked quietly.

The arm motioned me over towards the ear, then disappeared in a flurry of petals. I cast a quick look around at the pirates who were feasting and, seeing that none of them were looking in my direction -- since most of the ones in the area had probably seen me burn mustaches and bears off -- I scooted across the cage and over to where Robin's ear and eye were still stuck to the bars.

"Yeah, so Shiki was lying about the whole 'can't make people fly' thing," I muttered into the ear. "He dragged me with him back to his island and had this Indigo guy do something to me. It's kind of a bit of a blur, but I remember getting really mad and blowing something up, at least. After that, I woke up in a crater. I would have been running around the islands if Shiki hadn't caught me three days ago. I've been stuck in here ever since, burning off pirates' beards if they want me to do anything."

The ear twitched, the eye blinked, and they disappeared in a flurry of petals.

"Hey! Kid!"

I turned my head, and my eyes narrowed into a glare when I saw a drunk pirate standing in front of me, grinning like a crazed maniac.

"I don't have a beard, so I can ask ya ta do what I want!"

I wordlessly raised an eyebrow at the comment, then I let out a dry laugh as I eyed the mullet the pirate was sporting. I took in a breath and spat a Fire Sphere at him, setting that head of hair on fire.

The pirate paled significantly and ran off yelling for water, much to the other pirates' amusement.

There came a quiet laugh from nearby -- a laugh that I was familiar with. "Yohohoho! You do not need to be so harsh on them, Maria-san."

"I've been stuck in here for three days without anything that tastes remotely like Sanji's cooking," I responded darkly, scowling. "Five men have already asked me to take off my clothes, and I threatened to burn someone's family jewels the last time I was awake because I just _couldn't stand it anymore._ I think that I have a pretty good excuse to be harsh." I lifted the chain on my leg a little. "You mind helping me find a way to get these things off? I don't think I'm going to be going anywhere with them on."

"No problem." Franky held up a ring of keys, smirking. My eyes widened in surprise. "One of those girls handed these over." The cyborg grabbed the wooden bars and cracked them so that he could reach in and get to my ankles. I moved my legs closer to him so that he could try each of the keys on the ring before he found the one that worked for the shackles.

Robin reached over curiously and touched the shackles as I pulled my feet away from them and started rubbing at my ankles. The archeologist moved back as though she had been stung. "You could have mentioned that you were bound in Sea Stone."

"I find it more weird that Shiki was able to make Maria float when he couldn't do that to anyone else," Franky remarked, frowning.

I scowled at the memory, and flinched and rubbed my head when a blur of some kind came and went in my mind. "You're not the only one...." I glared at the wooden bars of the cage and decided that, instead of just setting the thing on fire, I'd do something else.

Gathering what tension I could in my legs, I shot forward and rammed into the bars that were on my crewmates' side of the cage. I broke through the bars no problem and ended up hitting Franky in the chest.

Franky grunted as the wood _cracked_ and I slammed into him. "Man, Maria! Where have you been hiding that strength?"

I landed on the floor feet first and rose to my full height. "You learn a lot of things when trying to survive in that monstrous jungle for half a week."

I didn't like what I had found out about myself, though. Shoot, some of it I wasn't entirely sure about!

"Like how to become more serious, it seems," Robin commented, eyeing me curiously.

"I'll be back to my old self when Shiki's been beaten into the ground," I replied shortly. I gained a curious expression. "How did you guys managed to find me? What's been going on outside?"

"Nothin' good," Franky responded. Come on -- let's get out of here and find the others. We'll fill you in on the way."

"Sounds good to me. Let's blow this joint."

**Time Break**

Franky, Robin, and Brook quickly filled me in on the situation with what Shiki was doing as we left the bar...which actually looked more decorated on the outside than I had been expecting.

"So, Shiki's the guy who's behind all the attacks in the East Blue." I slammed a fist into an open palm. "I thought that there was something up with that guy. We'd better warn the others what's going on, if they don't know that already -- and that village you mentioned, too."

"Indeed," Robin agreed. "Especially considering how we were scattered a week ago."

We walked through what looked like a village of some kind, but it looked like it was mostly made up of hotels and shops. And there were pirates walking around all over the place. I sent glares in all directions at anyone who tried to come close, and we walked out of the area without any trouble.

"Well, that explains all the pirates all over the place," I commented as an after-thought when we exited the town. "If he's going to be making alliances with all of them."

"Yeah." Franky's expression soured. "We're going to have to move -- and fast."

Then a rather nasty smell entered my nose, causing me to wince. "Okay, what is that?" I pinched my nose to keep the smell out.

"It seems to be coming from those trees." Robin nodded to a ring of white and green trees that we were walking through. "We noticed that the animals around here don't like the scent. Our ride certainly didn't like it."

I frowned up at the trees as we walked under them. "From what I can remember, if something smells bad, then it usually _is_ bad." Especially when it came to some things that ended up showing up in the different Pokemon regions.

And what was that about a ride...?

"Well, it seems that they surround every place that has people living in them," Robin remarked. "The village we mentioned is surrounded by these...Daft Green trees."

"Daft Green?" I raised an eyebrow at the name. "Did you hear that from one of the pirates?"

"One of the waitresses, actually -- the one that gave us the keys to your Sea Stone shackles." Robin looked like she was interested in something. "She mentioned that you were reported to have knocked down a number of them escaping from Shiki's palace. Apparently, he had to have some transplanted from elsewhere."

"Did I?" I blinked a couple times, looking out over the desert landscape that we were walking onto. It looked like the sun was setting. "I don't remember too well...everything's kind of a blur after...that stupid clown scientist." I clenched my fists tightly.

"A clown?" Brook repeated in confusion.

"Yeah. Stupid Indigo, thinking that he could experiment on me...." I felt my temperature start to rise as flames started licking at my shoulders as I gritted my teeth a bit. "I've had more than enough of that from my memories already."

Robin gave me a strange look. It looked like she was about to say something, but then there came a loud noise from nearby. It almost sounded like a giant was...hopping around or something.

I turned my head as Franky started grinning and cracking his knuckles. I could guess at what was coming, and I raised an eyebrow at the giant grasshopper that was coming for us. "I didn't think that bugs got that big."

"Heh. I was looking for something that we could use as another ride." Franky removed the false skin covering from his right hand. He started to run forward, but I moved in front of the cyborg.

"I've been sitting in that small box for three days," I said. "I'm in need of a warm-up."

"What are you--"

"Don't worry. I'm just going to stun it."

I cracked my knuckles, then tapped deeper into my anger as the fire on my shoulders started to grow hotter. They became more of a yellow-white color as I dashed forward.

"White Flare: 25 Percent! Fire Spark!" I brought my hands forward sharply -- like when Luffy uses his Bazooka -- and sent a blast of white-yellow fire at the huge grasshopper. I heard a _zap!_ as my attack hit the grasshopper dead-on, leaving it with burn marks all over its body. It was clear that there was something else going on with it, too -- the bug was struggling to move, but it couldn't get far at all.

So I took the initiative, dashed forward, and slammed a fist into the bug's head, sending it skidding backwards a couple feet before it collapsed.

I landed on the ground in a crouch before rising up to my feet, shaking out my hand. "That thing had some pretty tough armor. I wasn't expecting that."

"Wow, Maria!" Franky ran over to the collapsed grasshopper, sounding amazed. "When did you learn to do an attack like that?"

"Perhaps these islands have allowed her to recover quite a few more techniques?" Robin suggested as she and Brook came up behind us.

I gave a slight nod. "Yeah. Those animals and Shiki really liked causing me trouble by coming after me all the time."

"They probably will continue to cause us problems," Brook commented. "I simply hope that our crewmates are not having the same issues wherever they are."

I hummed shortly in response as Franky started pulling out tools and wheels, looking at the KO'd grasshopper with a wide grin.

As the cyborg started working, I let my thoughts wander back to when I had managed to escape from Shiki on my own....


	3. Day 3

When Maria managed to regain consciousness, she blinked with bleary eyes and slowly raised her head, feeling strangely drained. The teenager shook her head, trying to get her headache to disappear while she tried to remember what had happened last.

"What...." Maria rubbed her head and winced. Something flashed through the back of her mind _\-- a man with a white face and blue hair, grinning widely as he leaned in with a needle -- a strange feeling of anger and fire -- blurs of green, white, yellow, red --_

"Gah!" Maria bent over double, gripping her head as her headache intensified for a moment before subsiding. Groaning, she pushed herself into an upright sitting position, shaking her head in order to try and clear her vision.

At the same time, she saw where exactly she had ended up.

"Huh?" Maria blinked a couple times when she saw that she had ended up in the middle of a clearing in some kind of jungle...and that the clearing also happened to look a lot like a crater that had been the center of an explosion. As the rest of the blurs from before trickled in and out of her mind, Maria slowly turned as she looked around, a dumbfounded expression on her face.

That is, until she realized she was missing something.

"My satchel!" Maria slapped herself in the forehead, nearly missing the bill of the baseball cap that was still seemingly attached to her head. The teenager looked around frantically for a moment, wondering where her orange satchel had gone, only for her expression to sour a moment later. "Right. Shiki's got it somewhere."

_ "Yeah; I'm surprised that none of them actually managed to tear up my heart. By the way, I had a blue crystal hanging around my neck when I blacked out. Any idea where it is?" _

_ "It was torn apart by MetalMan's Shrapnel Blast. I'm sorry." _

Maria shook her head when she heard her own voice and the voice of what sounded like a kind old man in her head. She started to reach for her shirt. _Blue crystal...? But that means --!_

The sound of a beast roaring interrupted her thoughts rather abruptly.

Maria dropped her hand and looked around sharply, trying to find the source of the noise. She stiffened when a large, green giraffe with a loop in its neck suddenly crashed through the trees, bellowing in a way that didn't sound in any way natural at all.

Maria stared at the creature in shock, but when she saw that it was charging at her, she turned and scrambled out of the crater before she started running into the jungle. The giraffe, still roaring angrily, galloped after her.

"I don't think that giraffes are supposed to look like that!" Maria muttered as she ran. She wasn't panting for breath, but she didn't give that too much attention. "And why is it so mad?"

Something moved out of the corner of her eye, and she turned sharply. It looked like there was something moving between the trees, somehow muscular and fast at the same time.

There was a strange feeling in Maria's gut when she caught sight of the figure. Fire gathered on her arms quickly, and, without thinking, she leapt up into the air and spun around. "Fire Spin!"

The fire spread out from Maria in a shockwave as her feet hit a large tree. She looked behind her and watched as the giraffe stopped short as the fire whacked it in the nose. It blinked a couple times, looking at her, before turning and retreating back the way it had come.

Maria let out a sigh of relief. "That was close." She slid down the trunk and landed on the ground before rising to her feet. "I'd better find something to eat before I end up running into anything else. A green giraffe...I didn't think that something like that existed."

The teenager shook her head before starting off in a different direction, scanning the trees in order to see if there was anything that might be even considered edible.

Eventually, she managed to find a tree that had what looked like an edible apple of some kind; Maria picked three before she ended up finding herself face-to-face with a snake that happened to have a set of large fangs.

"Uh...." Maria blinked, suddenly becoming wary. She kept the apples tucked close to her chest with her left arm started to take slow steps away from the thing, remembering that snakes didn't like the cold very much.

Her right hand instantly motioned for her phoenix staff to appear, which it did so. At the same time, the snake shot forward, jaws clearly unhinged.

"Icy Wind!" Maria made a quick motion with the staff as she dashed out of the way, forcing a cold wind at the snake just seconds before it could slam into her.

The snake, which was now revealed to be long, thick, and colored a spotted copper color, ended up slamming into the tree that was behind Maria, its body falling limply to the ground.

Maria blinked, looking down at the limp snake for a moment. Then she heard a beast crying somewhere else in the jungle, then stiffened before she started to quickly wolf down one of the apples, tucking the other two into the pockets of her jacket.

The teen managed to finish off the first one before she caught sight of a large bear start to emerge from the trees.

Maria found her eyes locked with the beady eyes of the brown-and-black beast in front of her. Every part of her body was tense.

The bear stared at her for a moment, then made a huffing noise and turned its attention to the apple trees, which it promptly started to strip of its fruit.

Maria blinked in confusion. "You're...not going to attack me?"

The bear didn't so much as look at her. It just huffed again.

Maria blinked again, then let out a sigh of relief and relaxed before she started eating the second apple she had grabbed. _I guess that some of these guys aren't as bad as the others_.

Hopefully, she wouldn't end up getting caught off guard with that bear nearby.

As Maria was getting to be about halfway through her second apple, she heard something move in the trees nearby. She paused and turned her head sharply, wondering where exactly it was that the noise was coming from.

Maria's eyes narrowed as she scanned the trees nearby... _did I see something move in that tree over there?_

Then something strange happened. Maria's vision changed slightly -- it was a barely noticeable change, but it was almost as though the colors of the jungle had dimmed slightly and a shadowy figure brightened.

Before Maria could even move, the figure raised up something and fired a thin bolt at the black and brown bear who was eating the apples.

The roar of pain and anger that followed caused Maria to flinch in alarm before that changed to nervousness when the bear turned and _glared_ at her with a dark, angry expression.

Maria started to feel uneasy -- at the same time, a strange feeling started to rise up in her gut as the bear started towards her. "Okay. You want to do it this way? Fine."

Maria dropped the unfinished apple from her hand and gripped her staff in both hands before she lit the carved end on fire. "All right! Fire Slash!" She swung the fire in an arc before charging forward, slamming into the bear's gut at the same time that the fire singed its raised arms.

The collision didn't cause it to just become winded, like Maria had been expecting. It actually caused the bear to hit the apple tree with a _crack!_ , causing apples to rain on its head.

_ "The strength you have as a Reploid carries over to your human form now," _ said a gruff voice at the back of Maria's mind. _"Even if you don't seem to have ever made all that much use of it."_

Maria blinked in surprise when she heard that. Reploid? What did _that_ mean? And who was talking there?

Maria shook the thought out of her mind when she heard something move in the trees again. She turned her head sharply, and she caught sight of what looked like a muscular man moving away in the trees...carrying a bow.

Maria quickly guessed at what was going on and dashed after the man, bringing her phoenix staff around so that she could whack the man down. Moving completely on instinct, Maria jumped from tree to tree and quickly caught up with the muscular man with the bow and arrow.

"Graaaah!" Maria leapt up into the air from behind and slammed the staff into the man's back with so much force that she thought she might have broken her staff because of the cracking noise.

The man collapsed to the ground, knocked out cold. Maria landed behind him, inspecting her staff for a moment.

"Huh. That's weird...not even a dent in the wood." Maria looked down at the man she had knocked out and noticed that there was a rather large dent in the large metal cylinder on the man's back. She pulled at it a couple times, then noticed the bolts sticking out the top. When Maria tried to pull one out, it only came out a little before it stopped.

"Well, at least he's not going to be causing the animals anymore problems," Maria muttered. She stepped over the man, destroying the bow he had been using by bending it at an angle before she kept going.

Maria walked through the jungle for a good hour before she ended up finding another open clearing -- and this one happened to be on the edge of a cliff.

_ No, _ Maria mentally corrected herself. _It's the edge of an island!_

Maria moved to the edge and looked over the edge at some of the smaller islands that were scattered around the sky. Then she looked up, blinking a moment later when she saw the rest of them.

"Wow....okay, if Shiki weren't the cause of all of this I'd actually think that this is pretty beautiful." Maria turned slowly in place.

Her moment of peace was ruined suddenly by the arrival of the green giraffe that had been chasing her when she had woken up.

"Wh-what the--" Maria whirled and looked at the giraffe in alarm. A moment later, however, an annoyed look crossed her face as she gripped her staff. "I'm never going to get a moment's peace around here, aren't I? Fine. Then I'll _make_ you leave me alone!"

The teen charged at the giraffe, charging up a fire attack. Her annoyance seemed to translate through to the fire, because the flames became white and started releasing sparks.

The words were out of her mouth before she had even realized what was happening.

"White Flare: 25 Percent! Fire Spark!"

The green giraffe didn't even know what hit it. A wave of fire collided with its main body, spreading the rest of the way over it before the monster animal collapsed. As the fire faded, minor burns were shown on its fur, and sparks flew from its body, keeping the green giraffe paralyzed.

Maria's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Whoa. Did my _fire_ just do that?"

Another roar resounded from somewhere in the jungle, and Maria stiffened.

"Better get moving. No sense in waiting around for another one to find me." Maria took off at a run into the jungle, gripping her staff in both hands.

** Memory Break -- Present Day **

** Maria's POV **

"There we go!"

I was brought out of my memories by Franky's voice, and I saw what he had done to the grasshopper that I had knocked out.

I blinked with a blank expression when I saw what our shipwright had done. "Did you just turn it into a _motorcycle?_ "

"Cool, right?" Franky grinned at me. He jumped onto the grasshopper, which looked a little nervous at having someone so big put it on wheels. "Come on -- let's get on this thing and head over to that village! We've got no time to lose!"

"Right." Robin dashed forward and climbed on; Brook and I followed moments later.

"Let's go!" Franky revved the grasshopper's antenna before we took off across the desert at high speed.

"I hope we can get there before it's too late," Robin said worriedly, looking up at the darkening sky.

My expression soured. "Yeah. I doubt that just anyone would be able to take on those monstrous animals." I knew that I could be able to handle them no problem, but the people with feathers for wings? They didn't look nearly as strong as the pirates or my crew.

Something else was bugging me, though.

"Franky, what gave you the idea of using the animals around here for transportation?" I asked, looking up at the cyborg.

"Oh, this?" Franky glanced back at me, grinning. "I figured earlier today that it would be able to give us a rest and get us moving faster! That way we wouldn't have any more problems with flesh-eating ants trying to chase us down or anything."

"Flesh-eating ants?" I repeated. "You actually ran into some?"

"Yup."

"Those little creatures did not understand how delicious bones _could_ be," Brook said in a huff.

"Huh?"

Robin chuckled. "Brook wasn't considered appetizing to the ants, so they passed him by."

"Oh. I think I'd be happy to be in your situation then, Brook, because then they wouldn't be gnawing your fingers off." I turned around and gave the skeleton a dumbfounded look. "There's nothing wrong with being ignored sometimes -- it just means that you're being underestimated and you can catch them by surprise."

"I appreciate the thought, Maria-san, but the thought of those ants ignoring me still causes my blood to boil -- although I don't have any blood! Yohohohoho!"

I hummed in response to that, remembering that I had found something about about myself during those few days that I had been running around the jungle.

Should I tell them...? I shook my head at the thought. No, not yet. The only reason that I would reveal _that_ is if something really big happened. 

Which, knowing our crew....


	4. Day 4: Recaptured

** Memory Break **

Maria was really was getting used to running around in the jungle, fending off the monsters that kept coming at her. At the same time, she was able to find a number of those muscular men and knock them out before they could shoot too many of the animals on the island. The whatever-it-was that they had been shooting -- the bolts and the strange green bulbs at their ends -- clearly wasn't good for the animals.

Maria couldn't help but wonder if the animals were aware that she was helping them, but since they had been continually attacking her for the last few days without stopping, the teen figured that they probably hadn't noticed.

"A little help would be nice right about now," Maria muttered through gritted teeth as she moved through the trees, jumping from one to the next like stepping stones.

"There she is! Get the little troublemaker!"

Maria didn't even bother to look back to see who exactly was chasing her; she knew just by the guy's voice.

The Straw Hat pirate cursed her luck. "Seriously, why don't these guys learn their lesson and leave these guys alone?"

An idea occurred to her then, and she let out a sharp barking noise that sounded more like an animal's than like any sound a human could make.

But to any other animal who happened to be nearby...it might sound like something else. Maria really hoped that it did, anyway.

"That's the kid that Shiki's looking for! The one who caused Dr. Indigo all that trouble! We're going to get a huge reward if we manage to capture her and get her into the boss!"

"Don't speak so loud, you idiot! Didn't you hear that noise earlier? There's probably a monster somewhere nearby!"

Maria grinned, a dark aura seeming to come over her face. If only they knew what she could become.

Maria saw that she was coming close to the edge of the island, from just beyond the trees. She was tempted to jump off and see where where that was going to lead, but she decided to take another route, letting out another bark as she turned sharply.

"There it is again!"

"I thought you said this place had been completely cleared of those crazy animals!"

"There must have been one that we missed!"

Maria snarled something that sounded like a curse under her breath. Just her luck. She should have taken the chance and jumped off the edge like she had been thinking of doing. The teen instead decided to go deeper into the island then circle back around in order to try and find another island to jump onto.

She wasn't sure if she would be able to make it, but she wasn't about to just let these...these _dummkopfs_ catch her.

Unfortunately, Maria ended up running into something else.

** Memory Break -- Present Day **

** Maria's POV **

Franky brought the grasshopper to a stop, bringing me out of my thoughts...and into a nightmare.

"Damnit," Franky muttered, looking ahead at the smoking carnage. "We didn't make it in time."

"Even what fires there were have burnt themselves out," I muttered, noticing the smoke rising from the destroyed buildings of the village. I glanced down at the large, neat holes that went in a ragged line right on the outside of the village. "Looks like those Daft Green trees are gone, too. Shiki's men must have yanked them out." I clenched my fists, feeling my temperature heighten as small flames appeared on my shoulders.

"And look over there!" Brook pointed at an area of carnage ahead of us, and my breath hitched in shock.

"That's...." I couldn't believe it. "Those animals...they...."

The flames really started to rise from my shoulders then. Those animals -- the monsters that had attacked the village -- were lying there in the carnage, looking like they had been _burnt_ and _died._

I really wanted to burn something then, but I knew that I couldn't afford to be angry now. I forced myself to take a deep breath in and out, and the fire disappeared.

"It's just like the photo from the newspaper," Robin said in a grim tone, looking around.

"This is downright horrific," Franky muttered. "To think that this bastard's planning on doing the same thing to the East Blue!" The cyborg got the grasshopper to roll forward again with a soft revving noise.

"You've got that right," I agreed. "And those animal-monsters...he _uses_ them like tools! Experiments with them!"

"What?" Robin looked at me in surprise. "How do you know?"

"I ended up finding a couple squads of them when I was running around. Big guys -- each carrying a bow and a cylinder full of arrows that had glass bulbs full of a green liquid at the tip. Each time one hit an animal, they got really aggressive really quickly." My eyes narrowed as I saw what looked like the carcass of a long-necked herbivore dinosaur. "These creatures deserve to be treated better than this. If these were Pokemon and Shiki was considered their Trainer, he'd be arrested for illegal experiments and animal abuse -- to the severest degree."

"With all this carnage around, it's hard to think that our captain wouldn't be around here," Brook remarked, looking around.

"I was thinking the exact same thing." Franky raised his voice. "Straw Hat! Say something if you can hear me!"

"Luffy-san!" Brook called. "Are you out there?"

I was about to add my own call for our captain to theirs, but then I caught sight of something ahead of us: a giant spiral of some kind that stretched up into the heavens, dark and ominous. And the ground ahead of us looked like it had been plowed through by something.

"I don't like the feel of that thing," I commented warningly. "It looks like something bad happened over there."

"Then we'd better check it out." Franky revved the grasshopper's antennae, and the bug responded by pushing on the wheels a little harder. It pushed through the plowed ground -- which was surprisingly more solid than I had thought that it would be -- and jumped off a small cliff before landing in an indent that surrounded the spiral.

Now that we were closer to it, I realized what exactly it was that we were looking at. And who was trapped inside it.

"What happened?!" Franky stared up in shock at the heads of our fellow crewmembers: Usopp, Sanji, Zoro, Chopper, and Luffy. All of them out cold.

"Luffy-san," Brook said in concern.

"This is messed up," Franky continued, shaking his head.

"We'd better get them out of there," I commented, frowning up at the spiraled tower in front of us -- only now did I see that it was entirely made of dirt. "It doesn't look like they're doing too well trapped in there."

Robin nodded in agreement. "Right." She crossed her arms, clearly showing that she was planning on using her Devil Fruit abilities.

Franky ran for the tower of dirt and started to climb up, digging his bare feet into the dirt for a foothold. "Whoa! This thing's really solid for being made out of dirt. Everything's been compacted in."

"It'd probably have to be in order to hold them in place," I commented, looking up at Luffy and the others. A slight frown came over my face, and I started forward myself while Robin started to murmur something -- probably the number of arms she thought that she was going to need.

I felt a pinprick at the back of my mind as I reached the tower myself -- at the same time, Franky reached Usopp and started to yank on the sniper's exposed foot in order to get him out of the dirt tower.

** Memory Break -- 3rd POV **

_ Something was thrown at the back of Maria's head, and the teen caught it. Looking the orange disk over, she looked at a teenager wearing a blue and black "superhero" costume and gave him a curious look. _

_ "Gear came up with it a few days ago," the boy explained. "Now seems to be a good time to test it as any." He walked over to the exit. "You coming?" _

_ Maria grinned. "Like I'm going to pass this up!" She dashed out after him. _

_ Outside, a large, strange land vehicle was already moving out of the docks. Maria was quick to toss out the device Gear (whoever he was) had made, becoming surprised when it suddenly morphed into a metal board that was hovering in the air. _

_ "Now that is cool," Maria stated, grinning. She jumped on, the costumed boy following suit. "Let's go!" _

** Memory Break -- Maria's POV **

I shook my head to get the memory away. Where had that come from?

"Maria-san!"

I blinked, then looked over at the surprised skeleton, who was starting at me -- or, what I seemed to be holding at that point -- with a surprised expression.

I followed his gaze...and my eyebrows shot up when I realized that I had the same floating board in the crook of my arm that I had seen in my memory!

"Whoa...." I couldn't believe my eyes.

"How did you get that to appear, Maria-san?" Brook asked, sounding just as surprised as I felt.

I frowned slightly, not exactly sure how I was going to explain -- I wasn't exactly sure how it had ended up there, either.

But, for some reason, I did know how this..."hoverboard" worked.

I dropped the board on the ground...but it didn't hit the ground, instead hovering a few inches above the dirt. I jumped on it and willed the thing to go up. Surprisingly, it did so at a pretty fast rate; I ended up reaching Franky in seconds.

"Whoa!" Franky looked at me in shock. "Where did you get that? It looks _super!"_

I smirked at his comment, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I looked over at the crewmate who was in front of me -- Chopper -- and I started digging into the dirt around him in order to get him out. Chopper was in his small form, so it was easy enough to make a small hole and pull him out.

"Robin!" I called down. "Think you could make a net or something? I got Chopper out!"

I saw a criss-cross of peach-colored lines appear below me, and I dropped Chopper down onto them. A moment later, Usopp was freed curtesy of Franky. The rest of the crew quickly followed suit, with Zoro being the last one to get tossed down.

"What could have caused them to get caught in that?" I asked as I lowered myself to the ground.

Franky slammed into the ground as I picked up my hover board. "Probably that Shiki guy." His voice came out in a snarl.

"But why?" Robin frowned. "I find it highly unlikely that he would have come after any of us now, after we have been trapped here for a full week."

I hummed in agreement, frowning. "We're going to have to wait for the guys to wake up if we're going to figure out what exactly is going on here. I don't know if any of us would be able to shake them awake or anything...."

Robin made a thoughtful humming noise in response to my statement.

While a thoughtful expression came over her face, I let my mind wander elsewhere....

** Memory Break -- 3rd POV **

Maria gritted her teeth, glaring around the clearing -- and the men from Shiki's crew who had hemmed her in. She gripped her phoenix staff in both hands, both ends of the wood set on fire so that she could do double the damage no matter which way her opponents were coming from.

What made her really annoyed, though, was the fact that she was trapped in the same crater-clearing that she had woken up in after escaping from Shiki. And that same level of anger was starting to come back.

Maria was really tempted to let her anger get the best of her, but she knew that could do a lot of damage to the jungle, too, and the animals probably wouldn't appreciate her for that. So the teenager instead focused the energy that was coming through...and forced it through the rest of her body.

The energy rush that followed -- nearly overran Maria and could have caused her to black out, but she hung on until the black spots cleared from her vision.

"Let's see how you can take me on now," Maria muttered. Now that her staff was gone because of the energy rush, she charged at a pair of men in front of her, charging up her fire.

Before she was able to get too far, however, the lip of the crater suddenly rose up in front of Maria, causing her to come to a short stop as a snarl formed on her face.

"Well, well, I didn't think that you'd manage to avoid my men _and_ cause my plans so much trouble!"

Maria didn't need to turn around in order to see who was speaking. She let out a snarl as fire broke out across her back in what almost looked like a pair of wings.

"Grrraargh!" Maria turned sharply and threw out a bolt of fire in the direction of the flying man behind her, but he shot upward before the attack could make contact.

"The fact that you also forced me to come out also makes me extremely annoying," Shiki added in his infuriatingly calm tone. "How about you just go back to Dr. Indigo like a good little --"

"Don't you dare tell me to go back to that freak!" Maria turned sharply on her heel and threw her arms forward, causing the fiery wings that had been on her back to shoot out in all directions -- both towards the circle of men and towards Shiki. The red-orange shade of the flames took on a different shade -- one of a white-orange -- as it went about and honed in on each of the figures, catching the men making the ring that was keeping Maria in by surprise.

Shiki managed to dodge a few at first, but even his flying around didn't save him from all of them; one caught him in the back and the rest followed suits, latching onto his yellow-and-orange-striped robe and trying to burn at his hair.

It was at this point that the energy that Maria had ran out, and she was forced to stop pouring all her energy into her homing fire attack. She collapsed down onto one knee, reaching out and willing her staff to come back -- which it did after a moment.

"A good effort," Shiki remarked dryly, "but not enough." Something changed in the air, and the fire on his clothes and hair faded abruptly. Before Maria could even move, the Golden Lion had grabbed her head, causing a loud _pop!_ to be clearly heard.

Maria gritted her teeth, unable to move on her own as she felt herself be lifted up off the ground.

"Maybe I won't send you back to Indigo," Shiki decided aloud. "But I am going to make sure that you're not going to cause me any trouble anytime soon. I'm sure that the incoming pirates would appreciate some...entertainment. Jihahahahaha!"

Maria gritted her teeth and cursed everything from the Master Emerald to Arceus to Kingdom Hearts for putting her into this situation. Why make _her_ the only one who could be affected by Shiki's Devil Fruit ability?

Was it just because of what she had found out about her powers...?

Maria was sure that she was going to break her teeth from how hard she was gritting them. Seriously, she couldn't have been given a warning sooner than the day _after_ this had happened?

Maria really hoped that she wasn't going to end up getting caught by anyone _else_ like this anytime soon.

** Change in POV -- ??? **

The figure watched from the doorway as Shiki walked in, his arms folded under his arms like they always were. "Well?"

"You could have warned my doctor that the pirate was going to react like that," Shiki growled darkly, glaring at the figure leaning against the doorframe.

"Even if I had warned you, I doubt that you would have taken it seriously," the figure replied. "She was quite the unassuming character before, right? Seeming just like any other average human?"

The dark look that the figure got in from Shiki response to her statement made a strange smirk come over her face. "And? How was she when you found her?"

Shiki's glare intensified. "I can't help but wonder if you withheld information on purpose. That girl was in far better control of herself than you claimed that she would be, not to mention that she was able to put back the animals' SIQ injections!"

"Really? I didn't think that she knew about that."

"She shouldn't have. Those men can stay out of sight of even the most dangerous monsters." Shiki glared down at the figure. "You find all of this amusing. Why?"

The figure shook her head, purple eyes keeping her emotions hidden. "There are some things that I'm still trying to figure out about her, Golden Lion. From what it sounds like to me, though, it seems that she's starting to...."

The figure winced, then, and rubbed her head. A moment later, a dry, dark laugh escaped from her. "It seems that I'm wanted somewhere, pirate. While I would like to stick around and see what you're going to do, I have some other business that I have to take care of. _Ja ne_."

There was a purple flash, and the figure disappeared from sight.

Shiki swore, feeling less and less like his fun-loving self. This visitor had cause more than enough trouble for him because of that Fire Staff, and it didn't exactly help that his brand-new navigator, the little Baby Doll, wasn't accepting him as her new captain.

The Golden Lion was going to have to do something about that.


	5. Nami's Message

** Maria's POV **

It actually didn't take too long for the others to come to. Robin had looked like she was about ready to slap all of them awake, but there wasn't any need for it. We ended spending some time filling them in on what Robin, Franky, and Brook had figured out -- after Luffy and the others had told us what had happened with them.

"So you're telling me that Shiki's the one behind all this?" Luffy asked grimly. "With everything that's happening in the East Blue?"

"Yes," Robin confirmed grimly.

We were scattered around the clearing where the battle against Shiki had gone off against the guys. Luffy and the rest of them were sitting on the rocky ground while Robin, Franky, Brook, and I were still on our feet.

I didn't have my "hoverboard" out. It had vanished as soon as I knew that I didn't need it, before the guys had come to. Franky had seen the look on my face and had decided against asking about it. For now.

"So, he's gonna let those animal-monsters loose on our home towns just like he did on this village." Sanji clenched his teeth. "Evil bastard, making us look like a bunch of fools."

I grunted in agreement, nodding.

"Nami..." Usopp croaked. "She chose to go with Shiki so that she could protect the East Blue."

I turned my head when I heard the sniper's voice; Chopper had insisted that he look everyone over for injuries and was presently busy with Usopp.

"She saved our homes." Usopp's voice was shaky. "She saved us."

I frowned at that and folded my arms across my chest, considering what Usopp had said. Something about that didn't sit right with me...Nami knew the strength of our crew -- she knew that we could handle some pretty dangerous situations. Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark...even the places that they had been at before I had joined up with them in Water 7.

Something else must be going on here.

"Xiao!"

I blinked when I saw Chopper turn and look somewhere. I followed his gaze -- as did the rest of us -- and I caught sight of a little girl, a woman, and what looked like an old woman riding piggy-back on the woman's back. Two of the three had red hair...and all three of them had feathers on their arms.

"Are all of you okay?" Chopper asked, not moving too far from his present patient.

The little girl nodded, her eyes strangely downcast.

"You know these three?" I looked over at the reindeer curiously.

Our doctor nodded. "Yeah. They let us sleep by their house for a while -- before Shiki came in and took Nami back with him."

"We got to the underground shelter just in time," the woman said. She glanced away for a moment, then looked back at us. "What you were just talking about...you said that your home was -- are you all really from the East Blue?"

I said nothing, watching the worried gaze that was on the woman's face.

"And that girl...she's also from the East Blue?" The woman's voice was cracking. At the same time, the little girl started sniffling.

"Yeah," Luffy confirmed. "That's right."

The look of anguish that crossed the woman's face surprised me.

"How could we have said those awful things?" She got down into a crouch, sniffling. "She was there in the room...and I was so calloused to say that Shiki was the East Blue's problem now. I can't even imagine how much I must have hurt that poor girl."

My eyes widened. This woman...she was eager to see Shiki go that she didn't care that other people were going to end up getting hurt?

I don't remember anything like that happening to me before...there wasn't a memory tickling me at the back of my mind, and yet...

And yet....

The little redhead hid her eyes behind an arm. "I didn't even think about the people there!"

I was shaken out of my thoughts when I saw that there was something in the girl's hand. Luffy noticed it, too.

"Xiao, where'd you get that?" Luffy asked.

Xiao lowered her arm, and the yellow-orange shell she was holding, blinking back tears. She looked at the shell in her hand. "This? I just found it." The little redhead looked back. "It was lying on the ground over there."

"Can I see it for a sec?" Luffy rose to his feet and walked over. I didn't move until I noticed that Sanji and the others were getting to their feet and following after him.

Luffy got into a crouch in front of Xiao and took the shell from her as we approached. "You and your people are amazing, Xiao. Your whole village was destroyed by those huge monsters, but you're worried about Nami's feelings. You're some of the nicest people I've met, and I know a lot of people."

I smiled, the look on my face softening. Yeah, Luffy might have a point. Water 7 alone was a large group of people -- and then there's everyone else that Luffy met before then.

These people...it's clear that they were unhappy about what had happened.

"There's nothing for you to feel bad about," Luffy finished. His voice took on an angrier tone a moment later. "Shiki's the only bad guy here. And I'm gonna make him pay for what he's done."

My fists clenched at the mention of the pirate that we were going up against. Shiki was _definitely_ going to get what was coming to him.

"So cheer up, okay?" Luffy gave Xiao a grin, then stood up and moved to stand closer to the rest of us. It was at this point that I recognized what it was that Xiao had given Luffy.

"What is it?" Usopp asked, moving closer.

"Looks like that Tone Dial that Shiki gave us last week," I commented. "When Nami warned him about that cyclone."

"Yeah," Luffy confirmed. He moved his thumb to the closed end of the Dial and pressed down.

_ "If you get this message, please forgive me for not saying goodbye in person." _

"Nami left us a recording!" Chopper realized.

"Doesn't sound like a good one," I murmured, frowning.

_ "This might be tough to hear, but I've made up my mind to become Shiki's navigator." _

My eyes widened in shock before narrowing into slits.

_ "It's just...Shiki is a legendary pirate, and possibly the most powerful man alive. There's nothing you could do to match up to him." _

Luffy's hand was shaking as it held the Tone Dial. That and the expression on his face was more than enough to tell me he wasn't liking what he was hearing.

_ "He's bound to kill you if you come after me, and if you don't believe me...." _

I strained my ears when Nami's voice trailed off. Did she say something else?

But, still...Nami...what were you _thinking_?!

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Luffy roared, catching me and the others by surprise. I flinched back, feeling like I had been hit. "How could she say that?! You don't talk about your own crew that way!!"

"N-now come on," Usopp spoke up nervously. "Just calm down."

"What does she mean, we can't match up to him?! I can't believe she would say that to us!!"

"Not to sound too harsh," Franky spoke up, "but you can't deny that the dude just kicked all your asses."

I flinched at the reminder that Franky just presented.

Luffy stumbled over his words, still looking absolutely murderous. "No he didn't! I just -- I mean -- he was LUCKY! He tricked us and--"

Please, Luffy," Usopp spoke again. "Calm down!" He sent a glare in Franky's direction. "And you should really shut up!" He looked back at our captain again, just in time for Luffy to push the Tone Dial into Usopp's hand and stomp past us.

"Damnit!" Luffy cursed. It looked like _he_ was about ready to burst into flames, but he didn't so much as spark as he continued to stomp off, away from us and towards the rubble that was scattered around the area.

"Hey, Usopp," Sanji spoke up, tearing my gaze away from Luffy. "Let's hear it again."

"You think she said something at the end there?" I asked quietly, so that Luffy wouldn't pick up on it.

Sanji glanced over at me for a moment, but didn't say anything as Usopp pressed down on the Tone Dial again. Everyone gathered in close as the message started to play again.

_ "If you get this message, please forgive me for not saying goodbye in person. This might be tough to hear, but I've made up my mind to become Shiki's navigator. It's just...Shiki is a legendary pirate, and possibly the most powerful man alive. There's nothing you could do to match up to him. He's bound to kill you if you come after me, and if you don't believe me...." _

I had to really strain my ears in order to hear the last part of the message, but I managed to get it this time. My eyes widened when I heard it, but they quickly narrowed into a determined expression that was matched by my fellow crewmembers -- after they had managed to get over the shock of the message themselves.

_ "...then prove me wrong, and save me." _ ****

The sound of rubber stretching nearly took out the last portion of the message, and I glanced over. Luffy's arm had stretched out by us...and slammed forward. I didn't need to follow it in order to see where it was going; I could hear the sound of a boulder being crushed quite clearly.

I gritted my teeth. "Nami...."

Luffy stomped back over to us. He still looked angry, but not as much as he had been a moment ago. He folded his arms across his chest and exchanged looks with Zoro. They held each others' gaze for a moment before our captain looked at Robin with a determined expression. "We need to stop Shiki. Nami's not going to be able to do whatever-it-is that she's planning on her own."

I blinked. Since when did Luffy manage to come up with that conclusion?

Robin nodded in response. "I believe I know something that can help with that, Luffy. We will need to find our ship first, though."

"I know where it is." Luffy smirked, then turned and started running out of the village. The rest of us followed after him, making sure that Zoro stayed in the center of the group so that he wouldn't end up running off in a wrong direction.

"Hey."

I turned my head when I heard Usopp's questioning voice. "Yeah?"

"You haven't said anything about what you've been doing for the last week," the sniper commented. "You look kinda different. More...like Zoro."

Zoro looked over in our direction, looking somewhat surprised at the comparison.

I blinked, considering that. "Let's just say...I'm not what I thought I was a week ago."

"Does this have anything to do with the fact that Shiki could make you fly?" Chopper spoke up.

I expected Luffy to make a comment on that, but he didn't so much as glance back at us.

"Something like that," I admitted. "Something happened to me the first day that Shiki had me, and I managed to get loose. Even I don't know what happened at that point because I was just too mad to think straight." My expression darkened. "I managed to get away for a good three days before Shiki found me again and did that floating trick. I found out then that he's doing something to the animals -- some kind of green liquid-drug that makes them madder and stronger."

Chopper let out a gasp of shock. "Oh, no!"

"It's possible for us to be able to get into Shiki's palace, but if we're going to make a statement, it might be wise to follow their dress code," Robin called out. "It's apparently a black-tie occasion."

"Black-tie occasion?" I repeated, looking over at Robin. "Well, that's going to be interesting."

"What do you mean?" Usopp asked.

I paused, considering what exactly it was that I could say next.

I took in a breath and let out a sigh. "I'll show you guys what I mean when we get to the _Sunny._ I don't want to do it now because I don't know what's going to happen -- the only other times I've done it is when I've been really, really angry, and I've used up a lot of energy."

Looks were exchanged among the others; Zoro seemed to have his gaze locked on me for some reason. I figured that he was probably trying to figure me out again, so I ignored him.

After all, we needed to get back to the ship so that we could quickly put something together and attack Shiki.

** Change in POV -- Zoro **

Zoro noticed that there had been a change in Maria as soon as he had woken up. The kid had a dark look on her face that only belonged on people who had seen a lot of violence and knew they could handle it.

Zoro himself had carried an expression like that, but only because he had been in the middle of things enough that he knew he could handle a fight.

Maria, on the other hand?

Yes, the kid had been able to handle herself at Enies Lobby and Thriller Bark, but she hadn't seen enough to get _that_ look on her face.

Or had she?

Zoro shook the thought out of his head, deciding that Maria had probably been hit on the head during the last week. Maybe the impact had changed her personality or something.

** Time Break -- Maria's POV **

We got back to the ship and climbed up onto the deck. I'd initially been surprised to see that the _Sunny_ had somehow ended up dry ground rather than in a lake or something, but it didn't look like the ship had been damaged. Hopefully.

"So, Maria, what was it that you wanted to show us?" Luffy asked as we got up onto the deck.

I looked around at the others -- the rest of the crew had formed a circle around me on the deck looking at me expectantly.

I let out a sigh, forcing my shoulders to relax from their tense state. "All right; I'm going to make a mirage that shows what happens to me -- I don't want to actually go into that form unless I absolutely have to."

I got a couple nods in response, and I started to change the air's temperature. "Mirage Break."

My clothes shimmered in response to the the move, and I watched as the mirage formed over them. I needed to make sure that it wasn't going to be warped or anything, but that luckily didn't happen.

I heard a couple gasps, then dropped the mirage before looking up at the others.

"Yeah. That's happened a couple times to me already." I put my hands in my pockets. "My clothes turn into that. So no dress for me, unfortunately."

"You would probably be fine if you just went with that," Robin commented. She looked surprised, interested, and thoughtful all at once. "After all, a suit of armor can be considered formal."

Usopp's expression brightened. "Oh, hey! I've got an idea for what I can wear!" He turned and scrambled for the guys' cabin.

"H-hey! Wait for me!" Chopper ran after the sniper, the rest of the guys following after him.

Robin chuckled as she watched their undignified scrambling. "Well, I might as well change clothes as well." She gave me a slight smile, then turned and walked towards the girls' quarters.

This left me standing alone on the deck to consider what exactly was going through my mind at the moment, considering what had happened to me during the last week.

What was really worrying me, though, was how I was going to pull off...well, what I managed to learn about myself a few days ago. I wasn't angry this time -- I was determined, and that...how was that going to change things?

"I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there," I muttered, scowling to myself. I summoned up my fire and let it lick at my arms before dissipating, then clenched my fists. "Shiki is going to be stopped tonight."


	6. Shiki's Goin' Down!

**Maria's POV**

"All right, Franky," Luffy said, all business. "Let's go."

"You got it," the cyborg responded. "Grab something and hold on tight."

We moved across the deck to the mast and the deck railings, while Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji remained standing in the center of the deck. I stayed near the main mast myself, not wanting to be seen by the guards as soon as we got to where we needed to be.

"Coup de Burst!"

The _Sunny_ blasted forward and up the side of the crater that was in front of us. I gripped a little more tightly to the mast as we rocketed up into the air and started towards the island surrounded by water above us.

Everyone knew the plan -- even Luffy, who had such a dark look on his face that I had seen only a few times before on him -- and Franky had made it a point to hand out a few guns that he seemed to have been hiding belowdecks. Mine, like Chopper's, was strapped to my back.

The cyborg had been kind enough to give me a quick run-down of what to do with the giant bazooka-like thing, since this was the first time I'd actually held something like this, but I was still a little nervous.

Mainly about what was going to happen when we got to Shiki's palace.

"Maria! Zoro! You'd better get up that mast if we're going to make that entrance!" Franky called out from the helm.

"Right," the swordsman responded.

"You got it," I said, nodding. The two of us shimmied up the mast as the ship's flight started to level out over the island.

"On my count," Zoro directed as I got to one of the knots holding the sail in place. He grabbed the rope on his end, and I did the same. "Now!"

The two of us yanked at once, and the sail came down and instantly filled up with air. Then we scrambled back down the mast again as the ship started falling towards the ground.

My feet hit the deck a second before Zoro's did; I moved back to the mast and braced myself against it while the swordsman walked over to Luffy and Sanji, arms folded over his chest.

I grabbed the baseball cap off my head and looked at the blue sawblade shape that was on the front. I clenched the hat tightly, then made like I was stuffing the entire hat into my pocket. As soon as it was stuffed all the way inside, the weight and size of it disappeared.

I had barely managed to do that when the entire ship slammed into the ground.

"Whoa!" I let out a yelp as the earth crunched underneath the _Sunny._ There was a wrenching noise from nearby as the ship plowed through something -- I caught sight of some green powder mixing in with the smoke -- and then we came to a rumbling stop.

I looked up at the building ahead of us and couldn't help but gape at the scaffolding and one of the partially-toppled towers. "Wow...looks like a hurricane came through here or something." I jogged over to the front of the ship and came to the edge of the railing. I started to mess with the air, making it look like I was wearing something a little nicer than a jacket, T-shirt, and jeans.

"I think that the more specific answer would be that you were the one who came through," Robin commented, walking after me. She had chosen to wear a long black dress for what we were going to do.

"It was and it wasn't," I replied. "I wasn't thinking." I scanned over the archeologist's dress and muttered under my breath, "Mirage Break." In seconds, it looked like I was wearing a black dress myself, but with a white flower-like pattern along the bottom that I added on a whim.

"Wasn't thinking?" Franky replied, coming over. "If that happens when you _aren't_ thinking, then why do you not use as much power when you _are_?"

"I was really, really mad," I responded bluntly. My temperature spiked a little at the memory.

"Is this some kind of joke?!" someone called up from below. "Landing a ship _inside_ the palace?! Who the hell are these guys?"

The dust started to clear, and I cracked my knuckles as I glared at the muscular men standing around the ship.

"Here we go," Sanji muttered.

Luffy didn't say a word. He instead jumped down from the railing, the coat over his shoulders flapping like a cape. The rest of us followed after him and started clobbering anyone who came at us. I ended up relying solely on my fire powers and didn't even think of summoning my staff through the whole beatdown we gave Shiki's men on the way to the main gate of the palace.

I think Luffy shot me a couple weird looks when he saw me coating my hands in fire in order to give my uppercuts and gut punches a little extra _oomph_. I didn't bother to wonder what exactly it was that was going through his head, though -- we had other things to worry about.

The last guy fell to a kick to the chest curtesy of Sanji, and he turned and looked back at Luffy. The cook gave a nod, and then kicked the golden gate in front of us open before we started walking inside, Luffy taking the back end of our line.

I glanced about as we walked through Shiki's palace. It certainly looked like he had put a lot of work into making it.

Then I saw what looked like a hole that had been burned through one of the walls on the other side of a snow-covered garden that we walked past.

"Where did that come from?" Franky asked, looking at the hole in the wall. "Looks like someone shot a cannonball through there."

"That was probably me," I commented.

"Probably?" Usopp repeated. He was wearing a suit of armor that made him look like a samurai of some kind -- which was actually pretty cool.

"I don't remember what happened too well." I shrugged. "I just hope that I don't end up blacking out again."

All the color drained from Usopp's face while Chopper shot me a look that seemed sympathetic. Did he know what I was talking about?

We soon reached the other side of the garden, where it looked like there was some kind of paper door covering the entrance into the next room.

Wordlessly, Zoro started to take out his swords; the rest of us moved back a little as he chopped through one of the paper doors.

I smirked a little as the force of the attack sent the door flying.

Usopp gained a determined frown, then moved forward himself and threw out a foot...only for it to go through the paper and do nothing else.

"Shoot!" Usopp started to try and pull his foot out.

I shook my head at our sniper's antics. I guess he was trying to look cool like Zoro did a moment ago.

"What were you thinking?" Sanji shook his head and walked forward. "You've gotta do it with flair. Let me show you."

"W-wait!" Usopp looked back in alarm at our cook as he leapt up. "I'm still stuck!"

I sighed and shook my head as Sanji kicked the door in, with Usopp still stuck in it. "You could have had us pull him out, first."

Sanji shrugged back at me, and then we all moved into the room, making a half-arc around the open doorway: Chopper, Brook, Robin, and Zoro on one side, and Sanji, Usopp (after he got his foot out of the door), Franky, and me on the other side.

There was just enough room for Luffy to walk in after us -- it was almost as though we were his honor guard.

The feeling of pride I got from that really warmed me up.

"So you want another round?" Shiki asked from the other side of the room. He was sitting on a pretty ornate throne with an extremely detailed carving on the wall behind him...and there was a large number of people standing between him and us.

I remembered what Robin had said about Shiki making an alliance with other pirate crews, and guessed that these guys were the pirate captains that he was planning on allying himself with.

"Color me surprised," Shiki continued dryly, in an almost bored tone.

I bristled, stiffening up a little. I was looking forward to seeing his face pounded in by Luffy.

Luffy seemed to have given a couple knuckleheads an unspoken signal, because Sanji and Zoro started moving forward at the same time that our captain did. The rest of us followed their lead.

"You're planning on attacking the East Blue, aren't you?" Luffy asked. I ended up behind him because of how our arc shifted around him, but I could still tell that his hat was keeping his face from being seen by Shiki.

"So what?" Shiki responded.

We continued walking forward for a bit longer. As we moved, I couldn't help but notice that something in the back of my head was pointing me in the direction of multiple weak spots on multiple pirate captains -- where they would be most vulnerable for a fire attack...or a bullet...without actually getting them killed.

Just noticing that was enough to send warning chills down my spine.

I noticed that Luffy had stopped moving out of the corner of my eye, and I came to a stop with the others.

"And Nami. She's okay?"

I didn't like the look of the grin that came over Shiki's face when Luffy asked that particular question.

"Sure!" Shiki said with a dark grin. "She's doin' peachy!"

I heard quite a few dark cackles around the room, and my temperature started to spike -- not out of pride, like it had before, but out of anger.

"Jihahaha! You all sure put up a dangerous front," Shiki continued. "But you don't think the nine of you are going to walk out of here alive, do you?"

It was at this point that I think Shiki decided to show his trump card.

All the sunset-colored paper walls were kicked over in quick succession, revealing a large number of men in suits and carrying weapons. I heard the same thing from somewhere above us and noticed that there was actually a balcony up there.

"I'd thought that only one of you would be naive enough to think she could sacrifice herself to save her home," Shiki commented. "But now you're rushing in here, an entire suicide squad."

He sneered at us, and I really, really wanted to remind him of what had happened concerning me a week ago. But I caught a look from Chopper and I held my tongue before returning my glare to Shiki.

"You're as dumb as you look," Luffy said.

I smirked while Shiki frowned. Things were going to start to get interesting anytime now.

"Nami would never sacrifice herself, you idiot," Luffy continued. "She joined your crew so that she could take it out from the inside!"

Zoro flipped over the gun he was carrying over his shoulder, causing the rest of us to get our guns into our hands and aiming them at the pirates around us. Usopp was the only one of us to get down onto one knee, considering that he had grabbed an honest-to-goodness _bazooka_ before we had left the ship.

To be honest, I kinda felt a little jealous of him, even though all our guns were enormous.

"Now prepare yourself, Shiki the Golden Lion," Luffy declared. "We won't lose the same fight twice!"

I grinned, moved my finger to the trigger, then started to take my anger out on the morons for thinking they could take our navigator so easily. I didn't aim to take anyone's head off, though -- the explosions were big enough that I could knock out the supports for the balcony no problem, plus they only caused enough damage to knock people out with a couple broken ribs and maybe a concussion.

_"Dobby never meant to kill. Dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure."_

I blinked a couple times. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't exactly place where I had heard it before...it didn't sound like I had been right next to them when they had been speaking, either....

A clicking noise interrupted my thoughts, and I glanced down at my gun, which was feeling lighter than when I had started shooting. I glared at it.

"Rats, I'm out of ammo," I muttered. I pulled the strap that was keeping the gun on me over my head and let the thing drop to the ground.

"Same here," Franky agreed, dropping the guns from his shoulders.

"There never seems to be enough bullets to take 'em all down," Sanji commented.

"Well, that would be too easy," Zoro responded.

He and Zoro dropped their guns and the rest of us who hadn't done so already followed suit.

I snickered at Zoro's comment, cracking my knuckles. "It's time to pay back these guys big time."

"Let's get serious," Zoro agreed.

"Hey, Usopp, Chopper," Luffy called out, slipping the captain's cloak off his shoulders. "Go look for Nami."

"Right! We're on it!" Our doctor and sniper ran off.

"Get on your feet and stop those pests!" A pirate captain called out, pointing a sword in our direction. "Kill every one of them!"

"Kill?" I repeated, my voice starting to take on a dark tone. "I think not." I looked over at Luffy. "I'm going to start causing some collateral damage. If I start acting berserk, my fire attacks probably won't hurt you guys if I end up trying to go after you. Just a warning."

Luffy gave a nod, not even glancing over in my direction. "Go ahead."

I gave a manic grin, then let all the anger that I had been holding in explode out over me, wiping out the mirage that I was wearing a dress and exposing my orange jacket, red shirt, and jeans for a moment before completely covering over that with fire. A moment later, I was charging through the crowd, knocking pirates back from me and causing their suits to burn like bright little stars.

With all the anger that I was channeling this time, though, I was intent on staying in control of myself for as long as possible. Plus, I needed to find that clown's lab and destroy whatever data he had on me so that it wouldn't be used against me and the rest of the crew in the future.

"Who is the girl who set herself on fire?!" someone called out.

"That's Fire Staff Maria!" someone yelled back.

"Then where's the staff?!"

I moved in front of the speakers -- two pirates who weren't even captains -- and summoned my staff before ramming it into one guy's ribs and sending them both into a wall. "Right here, bozos!" I let it disappear a moment later and spun around for a moment, allowing the fire that was on me to turn into a giant tornado. "Fire Spin! Let's see you get out of this!"

I sent the attack flying at a group of pirates with maces and turned my attention to a different group, which I dashed through, leaving trails of fire all over the place for them to get burnt on.

"Wow, Maria! I didn't think you could pull something off like that!" Franky called out from nearby. He slammed a fist into a pirate's face before turning his attention to another guy who had tried to chop him with a sword.

"It's something I've been working on," I responded. "For the last week."

What I didn't tell him was that me-covered-in-fire was only the first part of it. Because I had hot emotions running through my veins at the moment, it was only going to be a matter of time before I lost my head.

So I had to find that mad clown/doc's lab before that happened.

"Time to make an exit," I muttered, looking around. I caught sight of the door that we had come through before the start of the fight and dashed over to it before I made a beeline for the hole in the wall that I was sure I had made a week ago. Maybe that would lead to where I wanted to go.


	7. Blue Blood?!

** Maria's POV **

It turned out that I somehow ended up taking something of a longer route around the palace when I had initially broken loose of that mad clown's lab. I had managed to get outside onto a wooden bridge before I had lost my previously-made trail.

"Come on, come on...." I looked around, wondering where exactly that stupid blue-haired clown had his lab hiding in the palace. The energy I was using was threatening to tip over into the blackout zone because I was channeling so much of my anger, but I wasn't about to just let myself give into it yet.

_ BOOM!!! _

I stumbled as the loud explosion caused the entire palace to shake, catching me by surprise. "What the--" I looked around quickly, trying to find the source of the explosion. It didn't take me too long to see where the smoke was rising, even though it was the middle of the night.

Still, I was surprised to see where the smoke was coming from.

"Are those...the Daft Greens?" I asked, blinking in surprise. "Did someone just try to blow them up?"

"Hey! There's one of the stupid Straw Hats! And she's all alone!"

"Let's take care of her now -- while we have the chance!"

I turned my head slowly when I heard the voice of the pirate -- one of the goons who was allied with Shiki. Aw, great. He'd brought friends with him, and all of them were looking at me like I was some piece of meat.

Seriously, of all the low-down, rotten things to think of a woman --

It was at this point that my annoyance decided to help fuel my anger a bit. I could feel what had happened to me before starting to take hold, and I knew that I had to move fast.

I rammed into the pirates, using my flames and the impact to knock them back into the wall on one side and over the edge of the walkway on the other.

It was a moment later that I caught sight of a barely familiar building...and it looked like there were two familiar figures near it.

And then it was shot down a moment later...and I caught sight of a figure standing mid-air.

I started picking up the pace, my anger picking up when I saw that my friends were being attacked by the same man who had caused all of us a lot of pain for the last week. "Shiki...."

Without thinking, I jumped forward off the walkway and started towards Usopp and Chopper. As I went, the energy I had been using in my anger started to take hold in a different form.

I didn't need to look in order to see what was happening to me. I'd already gawked at it before -- and I'd seen it when I'd shown the others using my Mirage Break.

"Now you've gone and done it, Baby Doll," Shiki was saying in a loud, almost mournful manner as I ran towards him and the cornered Usopp, Nami, and Chopper -- I could barely see the limp form of the navigator in Chopper's arms...and those green spots on her face didn't look good. "You're that determined to die, huh?"

"It's not so much that she's determined to die as she is determined to stop you, Shiki!" I roared in response. "Take this! Fire Sphere!"

I shot a large ball of fire at the pirate captain as I ran under him, catching Usopp and Chopper by surprise as I came skidding to a stop in front of them.

"Gah!" Shiki glared down at me as the flames on his clothes went out rather abruptly. "Why you little--"

"Maria!" the two of them exclaimed in delight.

"Is that a mirage?" Usopp continued, noticing what I looked like.

"No, it's not," I responded, shaking my head. "And I don't have much time before I black out from all the anger I'm holding in. I'm going to try to use it to harness my abilities rather than let them take control of me, but I don't know how long that's going to last."

"Go on and try as much as you like!" Shiki barked back. "No one is going to stop me from crushing the East Blue!"

It was at this point that large, white lion heads started to form out of thin air -- I didn't bother to check wether they were made out of snow or the air itself at that point.

"We're surrounded!" Usopp yelped.

"Not for long, we're not," I muttered in response.

I didn't know all of my powered-up form's new quirks, but I knew that my fire attacks were more powerful now than they had been, and I was planning on making the most of it.

Shiki yelled something out -- probably an attack, because a moment later, the lions "roared" and started gunning for us.

I prepared to fire off an attack in order to keep Nami, Usopp, and Chopper safe, but it turned out a moment later that I didn't have to worry.

A practically _glowing_ red, steaming form landed on the ground next to me. I took one look and noticed that Luffy was really, really, _really_ mad.

"Luffy!" Usopp and Chopper called out in relief.

"Good to see you made it in time, Captain," I commented, nodding.

Luffy didn't so much as glance in our directions; his gaze was firmly locked on Shiki.

"You don't know when to give up," Shiki said shortly, his gaze locked on Luffy.

Luffy glanced back at Usopp, Chopper, and Nami. "Nami. I'll finish him off. Then we're out of here."

"...Luffy...."

I barely picked up Nami's voice. She must be pretty weak.

"Shiki's mine," Luffy continued, leveling his gaze at me. "You take care of Nami."

"Sounds good to me!" Usopp piped up.

"Give 'em hell, Luffy!" Chopper agreed.

I watched Usopp and Chopper run off out of the corner of my eye. As much as I wanted a piece of Shiki, I didn't want to go against my captain -- especially considering how mad he was.

"All right." I gave a nod, then turned and followed after Usopp and Chopper, catching up with them in a matter of moments. "What happened to Nami?"

"She breathed in too much of the Daft Green poison," Chopper explained quickly. "The only cure can be made from a plant known as IQ, and Shiki's hoarding them all somewhere."

"IQ," I muttered, turning the letters over in my mouth. "That sounds...."

I quickly made the connection a moment later.

** Memory Break -- 3rd POV **

Maria looked up as she was dragged into what looked like a greenhouse, still cursing Shiki for making her float and be unable to control her own movements. She only caught a glance of what was in the room -- some kind of plant with a pink bulb instead of a flower -- before Shiki had her thrown through a doorway on the other side of the room.

"She's all yours! Jihahahaha!"

The door slammed shut behind Maria before she could have turned around to glare at the Golden Lion. But, then again, she now had other problems to worry about.

There was a clown with blue hair in front of her dancing around in shoes that made some rather unpleasant noises with each step. The bottle of green liquid in the man's hand also looked pretty dubious.

"Perfect! My last batch of SIQ was just finished!" The clown put the green bottle on a nearby shelf before he turned and looked at Maria, grinning widely. "Now I can see what exactly it was that that girl was talking about before!"

Maria's eyes narrowed at the statement. "Girl...?"

Unfortunately, she wasn't given an answer.

** Memory Break -- Maria's POV **

"I think I know where his lab is!" I called out, getting Usopp's and Chopper's attention.

"You do?" Usopp repeated, looking at me in surprise.

I nodded. "Yeah. I remember being dragged there pretty clearly. It's this way -- come on!" I dashed ahead of them and started for where I knew that clown's lab to be at, while I let my mind wander back a bit...specifically, back to when I first actually remember transforming like this.

** Memory Break -- 3rd POV **

Maria was really starting to get annoyed with the animals and the people who looked like they belonged in a manly man's archery contest. It was bad enough that she had to try and survive when the wildlife insisted on killing each other -- with people out and about making them even worse, it felt like she was starting to get down to her last straw.

Especially when she found herself staring down a giant, fat lion that looked like it could do better with a lot more exercise and a lot less food.

"Outta my way," Maria growled, glaring up at the fat cat in front of her. "I don't want to have to fight you, but I will if you so much as think about attacking me."

Something in her tone of voice seemed to make the lion hesitate for a moment, but then the creature let out a roar and charged at the teenager with an angry expression on its face.

Maria let out a snarl of annoyance and started to gather together energy so that she would be able to do something about the creature that was in front of her. When the lion tried to slam a paw down on her head, Maria started jumping back, glancing back occasionally to make sure that she didn't end up running into a tree or the edge of the island she was on.

She was concentrating so much on dodging, watching where she was going, and gathering energy that she only noticed what had happened when the energy seemed to reach a certain point.

"Huh?" Maria paused in her dodging and looked down in surprise as her clothes started to glow a bright white. "What in the name of -- " Maria let out a grunt as she felt something shift on her -- or was it _in_ her?

The lion stopped short upon seeing the glow, somehow looking confused.

The light quickly faded, and Maria, who was looking down, let out a gasp of shock and surprise.

"What in the name of the Grand Line...?" Maria started to look herself over. "What is this?!"

The teenager was now wearing what looked like a set of armor from the neck down, colored in red and orange, with gray underarmor hiding underneath -- the only places Maria could see the underarmor was on her upper arms and her thighs. Everywhere else was either a bright red -- like the huge boots that went up to her knees -- or orange -- like the armor on her arms from her elbows down to her wrists, where gold rings separated the armor from white gloves.

And the entire thing felt really, really familiar somehow.

"Was...was this what happened....?" Maria thought back to the blurred memories from a few days ago, the only thing that was her clue at escaping from Shiki's palace.

The lion growled, reminding Maria that there was still a monster at large -- and the thing looked hungry, too.

Maria glared up at the monstrous animal, clenching her fists tightly. "Still see me as dinner? I'm gonna make you rethink that."

** Memory Break -- Maria's POV **

I remember switching back after that with a BBQ'd lion ready to be eaten, and I was horribly exhausted. So, even if I don't lose control....

Like I'd told Chopper and Usopp, I did know where that stupid clown's lab was. It didn't take too long to find it and burst through the door into the greenhouse I remembered from before.

"What is this place?" Usopp scrambled over to a ladder that looked over one of the plots of dirt and looked in.

"A greenhouse," I responded. I had slowed to a walk as we had come in, and I looked over at Chopper, who was moving to another one of the plots. "Are these the IQ plants that you were talking about earlier?"

Chopper nodded absently. "Yeah." He looked up at the windows above us. "It looks like they're using the moonlight to grow them."

"I'd have thought that plants needed sunlight...."

I shook the thought out of my head when I felt a pang at the back of my head. My time in my armored form was starting to run out, so I was going to have to move fast if I was going to cause a lot of damage around here.

"If you're looking for the lab, it's back there." I pointed up the stairs at the other end of the room.

Chopper turned his head when I said that; it almost looked like his nose was twitching. "Yeah -- I smell chemicals over there!" He ran quickly over to the stairs and started up them, being careful not to jostle Nami's position on his back too much. Usopp and I followed after him quickly.

Chopper broke through the door to the lab and came to a stop in the center of the room, which actually looked the same as when I had been there last. I'd have thought that there would be some damage from --

I noticed there was some snow dusting in and looked up. "That hole in the ceiling...it's got burnt edges. I must've broke through there last week when my memories started to get fuzzy."

"Really?" Usopp looked up. "That's pretty high up...."

I would have mentioned the hover board, but Chopper moved over to one of the tables in a corner of the room. "Guys, help me look for the antidote for the Daft Green poison!"

"Right!"

Usopp and I ran over and started to go through the bottles that were scattered around what looked like an advanced chemistry set.

"How are we supposed to know which one to give her?" Usopp asked, picking up one of the bottles and inspecting the label.

I frowned, picking up a green bottle and, upon seeing the label, smashed it into the floor.

Chopper let out a cry of surprise and shock when he saw what I had done. "What did you --"

"The antidote is definitely _not_ that one. That's the drug that they've been giving the animals to make them go mad."

"Really?" Usopp looked at the green mess on the floor.

A moment later, there came a sound like someone had just passed gas above us, and we all looked up. I stiffened when I saw who it was.

"You!" I snarled, my anger and energy spiking at the memories that came flooding in.

"A bad guy!" Usopp and Chopper yelped in a panic, backing away.

"What did you do with the blood you pulled from me?!" I demanded, pointing an accusing finger at the blue-haired, lab-coat-wearing clown above us.

"Piropriopiropiro!" The clown's shoulders convulsed as he laughed. "You mean this?" He pulled out a small vial of a blue, glowing liquid from one of his pockets. "You blood is very interesting, Fire Staff. If anything, I'd say that it's more like a type of fuel than anything else!"

"A fuel...?" Chopper repeated, sounding wary. A moment later, he made a noise of realization. "You smell like you've been handling chemicals! Are you Shiki's scientist?"

"Yes, and a rather formidable one at that," the clown replied, sounding pleased with himself.

"Give us the cure for Daft!" Chopper ordered.

"And I don't want you messing around with what you pulled out of me!" I added, pointing at the blue vial the stupid clown was still holding.

"Piropiropiro! Why should I?" The clown pulled out a little pink vial from his other lab coat pocket. "You can look all you like, but why should I give you my own personal emergency stash?"

"Because I'll burn this entire lab to the ground if you don't," I snarked in reply, fire twitching at my fingertips.

"And it would save you a lot of pain," added a familiar voice from behind us. "Trust me."

I turned slightly to look back, still keeping an eye on the clown.

"Not that I mind taking it by force or anything," continued the voice as a familiar figure showed himself. "Stand back, guys. I'm gonna slash this clown into confetti."

"Zoro!" Usopp and Chopper cried out of relief.

I merely grunted. "I've got a grudge against this moron too, ya know." I flinched as another sharp pain hit me in the back of the head. There was no way that I was going to let myself slip out of this transformation now!

"You managed to follow me all the way here, did you?" the clown asked, sounding somewhat intrigued.

"All right! Get this guy!" Usopp jabbed a thumb in the direction of the clown. "We need that drug he has to save Nami!" He and Chopper dashed out of the way, but I didn't move and shot the clown a dark glare.

"Maria, get moving," Zoro snarled. "This guy is mine."

I growled back. "There's no way that I'm going to let this guy go unscathed. He and Shiki were planning on doing something with me, and while I'm glad that I managed to find something out about myself in the process, I want what he's got of mine before he does something nasty with it."

Something beaned me in the head, and I caught it before it could fall to the floor. To my surprise, I found that I was holding the vial of glowing blue liquid in one gloved hand.

"Fine, you can take that," the clown snarked. "I've already looked over enough of it to know what it's made out of, you weak little girl."

I stiffened and glared at the clown. "Why you --"

_ "Maria. _ " Zoro was starting to sound impatient and annoyed. "Get out of the way _right now_. This weak moron's mine."

I didn't remove my gaze from the clown for a moment, but then I let out a growl and retreated back to where Chopper was, allowing Zoro to have enough room to go after the clown.

The clown dropped down to the floor. "So, you think I'm weak, do you? You think you can beat me, you East Blue _hiiiick?!_ Nobody cares if your craphole sea gets destroyed! All you people are worthless! _No one cares!_ "

I saw the look that came across Zoro's face and shared his sentiment. With a roar, I threw out an arm and sent out a wave of fire that caused the entire back wall to explode, sending the clown scientist flying out and into the cold, snow-filled air.

At the same time, the energy I was using to keep the armor on had been starting to give out, but with that scientist's exclamation, the energy completely boiled over.

** Change in POV -- Usopp **

Usopp gained a concerned expression as Maria started growling while Zoro jumped out the burning hole in the wall that the clown had made when he was blasted backwards. "Uh, Maria...?"

Maria just growled back as her eyes seemed to roll into the back of her head.

"Uh oh," Chopper said worriedly.

"What is it?" Usopp looked up at their doctor.

"Maria just said 'Berserk Mode'!"

As though Chopper had said the magic words, Maria let out a loud roar and blasted through the hole that Zoro had jumped through a moment ago, streaming fire behind her and sending it in all directions.

"Berserk Mode?!" Usopp repeated in alarm. Oh, that did _not_ sound good. At all. "But wait -- how did you understand her??"

"It sounded a little garbled, but I think she was talking like one of those Pokemon things she mentioned a while back," Chopper responded.

A loud explosion suddenly went off outside, causing the both of them to jump.

Usopp looked out the burning hole in the wall nervously. "Zoro!" The sniper started to scramble out of the lab -- probably hoping to catch sight of the swordsman and see if he was all right.

Chopper started to follow after him, but then one of his feet hit against something. He looked down, and blinked in surprise when he saw the blue vial that Maria had claimed held her blood.

The doctor leaned down and picked it up before hiding it on his person. He should probably have a look at it later so that he could know what exactly it was that made Maria so angry about the clown having it. For now, though, getting Nami the antidote was even more important.

** Change in POV **

Zoro looked up as he ran back towards the main fight, noticing that there was a bright, angry, flaming red _something_ cross the sky before it collided with the main palace. "What the hell?"

The swordsman decided that he wasn't going to question it and started running again. He was itching to get back to the palace so that he could slash those enemy pirates to pieces.

If Maria wanted to take her anger out on them, that was fine by him, but he really wished that she would leave at least somebody behind. ****


	8. What is Maria?

\-- _Flames -- palace rooftop -- pink gorilla's really gonna get it -- topple tower -- red, brown, white, green, people screaming -- BOOM -- lightning -- ground breaking -- everything fading --_

** Memory Break **

Maria let out a groan as she started to come to. " _Ow._ Who knocked me over the head with a Keyblade...?" The amnesiac started to sit up slowly, rubbing her head in order to try and dispel the headache that she was presently feeling.

Chopper, who had been sitting nearby, turned quickly in his chair as a delighted expression crossed his face. "Maria!" He quickly jumped off and scrambled over to the bed that was in the infirmary. "Don't try to move too much, okay? I had Franky use a couple Fresh Fires on you when we got you back so that your injuries could heal, but you shouldn't push yourself!"

Maria grunted in response to the statement, turning her eyes to look at the reindeer as she let herself collapse on the bed again. "If you say so, doc."

"Saying that won't make me happy you moron!" Chopper danced about. Finally, someone actually listened to him in his infirmary without protest!

"H-hey, Chopper...." Maria winced as her headache sent a wave of pain down her spine. "What happened? The last thing I remember is Zoro going after that stupid clown. Did we beat Shiki?"

Chopper stopped dancing around at the question and looked at his patient, smiling. "Yeah! Luffy took him out using a giant foot that crushed the entire island to pieces! It was awesome!"

Maria chuckled in agreement. "Sounds like it. Makes me wish that I had been there." She tapped the side of her head; the headache was starting to fade now, and the amnesiac felt like she could think a little more clearly now. "What about the floating islands?"

"They all crashed into the sea. With Shiki knocked out like that, his power couldn't hold them up in the air at all anymore. Everybody's safe, though -- Xiao and the others actually _were_ able to fly with those feathers on their arms!"

"Really? Wow -- sounds like I missed all the best parts." Maria gained a pouting expression at the thought. "Great, my anger boils over and makes me miss everything."

Chopper's expression sobered when he heard Maria say that. "Um, Maria...what exactly happened back there, anyway? You growled 'Berserk Mode' and just blasted out of the building! And then you went and blew up Shiki's palace!"

"I did _what?_ " Maria's eyes widened in surprise.

"Yeah, and that's not even the scariest part. It almost looked like some kind of fire bird was over Shiki's palace, too -- Robin said it looked like a phoenix."

_ "White Flare -- 175 Percent! Phoenix Style!" _

Maria flinched a little as her headache suddenly intensified with the call of her own voice at the back of her head. She shook it out a moment later.

"Billy ended up finding you and Luffy and brought you back when the islands were falling," Chopper added, bringing Maria out of her thoughts.

"Billy?" Maria repeated in confusion. "Who's Billy?"

"Oh, that's right -- you never got to meet him! Billy's a yellow bird that can discharge electricity like some kind of electric eel."

Maria blinked a couple times when she heard that, then gained an amused expression and let out a laugh. "Oh, man! If Zap ever learns of this, I'm going to call one of his brothers Billy!"

"Zap?" Chopper repeated.

"A large bird Pokemon that can release discharges of electricity," Maria replied, grinning. She shifted herself on the bed so that she was lying on her side, so that she could look at the reindeer a little more easily. "Their species is called Zapdos, but I call the one I befriended Zap for short. Cause he likes to zap people sometimes if they annoy him enough."

"Really?" Chopper looked at Maria with wide eyes. "Luffy said he called Billy Billy because of his electric bill! Do you think that Billy and Zap could be related?"

"Hmmm...maybe?" Maria shrugged a shoulder, then frowned. "Hey, Chopper...how long was I out?"

"About two days. You muttered some strange things in your sleep sometimes."

Maria blinked at the statement, startled. "I did?" It took her a moment to remember what exactly it was that she had been dreaming about a moment ago. "Oh, yeah...."

"Yeah." A serious look came over Chopper's face.

"What did you hear me say, anyway?" A concerned expression came over Maria's face.

Chopper hesitated. "You were really angry a good deal of the time. You kept yelling something about people not being allowed to control you or your friends. Other times....it kind of sounded like you were having fun, but it also sounded like you were fighting or something."

Maria frowned at this, and she bit her lower lip as she tried to think through what she had recovered...even though some of it wasn't exactly good....

"...some of that does go with what I _can_ remember," Maria finally admitted. "But most of my dreams are just blurs of color."

"You want to talk about it?"

Maria frowned at the question. "I dunno...some of the memories that I got back aren't really all that happy for the most part. If I'm going to talk about them, I think I'd have to do it in front of everybody." She looked herself over, noting that she was back in her blue jeans, red shirt, and orange jacket. "I guess you guys are wondering where that armor came from, too."

The expression that Chopper had on his face answered that question well enough.

Before Maria could start saying anything else, though, a certain blond-haired chef came into the room, carrying something that definitely smelled delicious. In seconds, Maria's stomach was growling. Loudly.

Maria licked her lips, suddenly feeling hungry. "Hi, Sanji!"

"Maria-swan! You're finally awake!" Sanji looked absolutely delighted at the sight of the amnesiac looking up at him. "I was hoping you might be, so I brought in some lunch for you and Chopper!"

"Thanks!" Maria shifted back a little on the bed so that Sanji could put down the tray he had been carrying -- which had two bowls of what looked like a soup. Maria could guess from the smell that it was a chicken soup, and that got her licking her lips hungrily. She quickly grabbed a spoon and started digging in as Chopper grabbed the other bowl and started eating himself.

"So, how could you manage to set off so much fire and then end up knocked out for two days?" Sanji asked, looking at Maria curiously.

Maria slurped up a noodle. "From what it sounds like, I used up a lot of energy. I couldn't stay awake on what I had left, so I ended up falling unconscious in order to keep myself from using more -- and so that I could get some energy back." She promptly went back to the soup.

"That makes sense," Chopper said, nodding. "Are you feeling better now, then?"

"Yup!" Maria wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her jacket, having managed to finish the soup in record time. "I probably shouldn't be getting into any battles anytime soon, though."

"Good!" Chopper nodded his approval. "I don't think you should try moving around too much, either. Not until we know you're back at full strength."

Maria nodded in agreement. "Yeah, sounds like a good idea. But I would like to be able to get out on deck so that I can explain to you guys what I think happened with me. Is that okay, Chopper?"

The little doctor considered Maria's statement for a moment. Maria was actually asking rather than getting up and moving around herself. Considering that she had asked, and that she was probably all right except for the fact that she probably wasn't fully up to strength yet.

"Just don't move around all that much, all right?" Chopper said in a warning tone. "I don't want you to collapse so soon after waking up."

Maria nodded in agreement. "All right. Sounds good to me."

Sanji grabbed the tray from the bed as Maria swung her feet over the edge and got to her feet. "I'll take these back to the kitchen and help you out onto the deck, all right, Maria-san?"

Maria looked up at the cook in surprise, and before she could even offer a word in edgewise, Sanji had spun out of the infirmary and come back a moment later.

"Come on, Maria-san," Sanji said, smiling.

Maria blinked blankly at the cook for a moment, then gave a nod and put her hand up on the cook's shoulder as a support. She saw the shiver that went down Sanji's spine at her touch and heard him cry out in joy, but Maria did her best to ignore it as the two of them walked out into the galley, and from there out onto the main deck.

"Maria!"

_ Wham! _

"Oof!" Maria stumbled back when Luffy suddenly rammed into her, sending her skidding back from Sanji a short distance. She looked at Luffy in surprise when he wrapped his rubbery arms around her, but then exchanged a grin with him a moment later. "Hi!"

"Hey, you rubber idiot!" Sanji barked, turning sharply to glare at Luffy. "What the hell are you thinking?! Maria only just woke up! Be a little more careful!"

"Shishishi!" Luffy laughed and released Maria from the hug he had held her in a moment ago. "Sorry, Sanji!"

"It's all right," Maria added, grinning at the cook. "I'm used to being tackled like that; our captain doing the same isn't an issue."

Sanji huffed. "Still, you should be more careful." He planted a foot on Luffy's head and pushed him down onto the deck, but Luffy simply laughed and bounced right back up. "Maria-san said she had something to tell all of us, too, so you'd better listen when she's talking."

"Maria has something to tell us?"

Maria looked over upon hearing Nami's voice and caught sight of her and the others standing on the grassy deck, looking curious.

"It's about what happened to me up on Shiki's islands," Maria explained as Chopper came out of the galley. She made her way over to the swing tree and sat down underneath it as the others gathered around; Luffy jumped onto the swing, an expectant expression on his face.

Maria rubbed the back of her head as the others looked at her with varying expressions of curiosity and expectancy. "Remember that mirage I showed you guys before we attacked Shiki's palace? The one that made me look like I was wearing some kind of set of armor?"

There were various nods.

"You ended up actually wearing it later," Chopper pointed out. "Before we found that clown with the antidote for Daft."

"And before you went absolutely nuts and blew up Shiki's palace," Usopp added. "Man, Maria, if we'd known that you had that much power, we wouldn't have worried about putting up dynamite all over the place!"

Maria blinked a couple times when she heard that, and a sheepish expression came over her face. "Uh...I think that's mainly because I don't remember everything about myself yet. Besides, I didn't know that I had blown up Shiki's palace like that until Chopper told me a few minutes ago."

"You _didn't?"_ Nami asked in surprise. She looked a lot better than she had when Maria had last seen her -- there was no sign whatsoever of the green splotches that had been on her skin during the battle against Shiki. "How is that even possible?"

"...I think it's got something to do with how angry I get when I'm in the armor," Maria admitted. "Chopper said he heard me growl 'Berserk Mode,' so...." She shrugged. "I guess there's more to me than being a Pokemon Trainer and traveling to undersea kingdoms."

"Do you have any idea where the armor comes from?" Robin asked, curious.

"I'd kind of like to actually get a good look at it," Franky commented. "From what I saw of that mirage, it looks like it's made to be a pretty good defense."

Maria paused, considering the questions. "I know that I can switch back and forth between the armored form and this one -- kind of like how Luffy changes Gears -- but it takes a lot of energy in order for me to do that. I don't want to switch into it unless I absolutely have to -- if I push myself too hard, I could end up going into that berserker state again."

"So it's not going to happen every time," Zoro noted, his arms folded across his chest.

"I just have to watch how long I'm in that form and how much energy I use, I think. I managed to work with it a couple times when I was going against the animals on the different islands, but not really enough to make it so that I could be in that form for a long time."

"You keep referring to it as some kind of form," Chopper spoke up again. "What do you mean by that?"

Maria looked over at the reindeer, blinking for a moment. "Uh...." A frown crossed her face. "You know what, I'm not exactly sure myself. The memories I got back about it all suggested that it was a form that I could switch back and forth with -- that's why my clothes never seem to change. In a way, this is almost like a form of my armor." Maria pulled at her jacket. "I can change what color my clothes are, but that's about it. I don't really know if I can do that with my armor, though."

"A-and what about what you were yelling to that clown about?" Usopp spoke up. "You seemed really mad that he was messing with some of your blood."

Maria's expression darkened as the others looked between Usopp and Maria in confusion. "That's got something to do with the memories I managed to recover. I...I've been messed with a couple times, and I didn't want anything bad to come of it."

A strange silence came over the crew as they digested this.

"It's even worse now that I know what exactly my blood _is,"_ Maria added moodily.

"What do you mean?" Franky asked.

"I'm kind of curious, too," Chopper added. "You dropped the vial when you went berserk, and I hope you don't mind if I tried to analyze it while you were out. It's just...I can't make heads or tails of it. It's like it's not even blood."

"Not even blood?" Nami repeated, blinking in shock.

"How can someone not have blood?" Usopp frowned. "That's impossible."

"I don't believe that--"

"Excluding you, Brook!"

"It's called Energon."

Everyone turned their heads and looked back at Maria in confusion.

"Energon?" Luffy repeated, blinking.

Maria nodded. "Yeah. It's some kind of...mystery fuel that's got a lot of kick to it. A vial the size of what that clown had is enough to cause an explosion similar to the size of one from a small cluster of dynamite -- but only if the stuff is lit. I've got memories of people finding it in a giant crystal form, but...I'm not really sure of its origins beyond that."

"Mystery fuel, huh?" Franky looked interested. "So, does that mean you're a cyborg, too?"

Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp instantly looked at Maria with wide, eager eyes, but the amnesiac gave a helpless shrug.

"I don't really know," Maria admitted. "I don't have all my memories back yet, and there's this really big gap between when I was a Trainer and when it was revealed that I could switch back and forth. And I know that I didn't have the armored form when I was a Trainer, so it must have happened sometime in the gap in my memories."

Nami frowned and started muttering something under her breath, counting something off on her fingers. A moment later, her frown deepened. "You know, from what it sounds like, you might actually be older than nineteen, like I thought you had been. Kind of sounds like you're more in your twenties or something, but that can't be right....."

"Would you believe me if I said that you might be closer to the truth than you think?" Maria ducked her head at the surprised look she got. "When I was the leader of a Pokemon Exploration Guild, I was a Vulpix at the time. I clearly remember being 16 then. When I was transformed back into a human, Dialga and Palkia -- Pokemon that control time and space -- made it a point to turn back the clock for my body so that I was 10. Then I spent somewhere between six and seven years traveling around as a Trainer, aging naturally. Take that into account and...I'm probably somewhere around 22 or 23...." She rubbed the back of her head. "Maybe even older."

"22 or 23?" Zoro snorted. "No way."

Sanji looked surprised. "B-but...how? You don't look--"

"Exactly." Maria had a confused and helpless look on her face. "I should be showing my age a little bit more than I am, right? So why aren't I?"

The other Straw Hats exchanged looks.

"Does it matter?"

Maria looked over at Luffy, who had an expectant look on his face as he looked at the blue-eyed amnesiac.

Maria frowned at the question. "Well...not really, but--"

"So don't worry about it."

Maria blinked in surprise at Luffy's statement. "Huh?"

"It's not going to get in the way of you getting your memories back, is it?"

"Uh...." Maria frowned at the question. "Well, I don't think so--"

"So don't worry about it," Luffy insisted. "It's not like not having wrinkles or anything is going to make you stop getting your memories back."

Sanji spluttered something in the background while Brook laughed at the captain's statement.

"He's right," Chopper agreed. "You appearance shouldn't make you not be able to remember some things."

Maria blinked a couple times when she heard the reindeer agreeing with her captain, and she gave a slight nod in agreement. "Yeah, I guess you guys are right. All right, so I won't worry about it."

Luffy gave Maria a triumphant grin. "All right! Now we can keep going for Fishman Island!"

"RIGHT!"

Maria laughed as her crewmembers threw their fists into the air, grinning along with them. It almost seemed as though her grin was as wide as Luffy's -- or, as wide as Luffy's might have been if he wasn't made out of rubber.

_ Won't be too long now before we reach the New World, _ Maria thought. _I wonder what memories I'll get back there?_


	9. Recovered Memories

During the days after the Straw Hats had left Shiki's destroyed plans in the dust, Maria took to reading the books she had and scribbling in her memory journal. Chopper, oddly enough, left Maria's journal alone in favor of playing with Luffy and Usopp. When Maria asked him why he wasn't interested, the reindeer had paused for a moment before admitting that he'd heard more than enough when she had been recovering in the infirmary.

However, that didn't stop Robin from being curious about it.

"So, what do you think are the chances now of us meeting one of your old allies?" Robin asked as she sat down on the grass next to the amnesiac.

Maria jolted at the question, not having expected someone to come up on her. She looked at the archeologist with a blank expression for a moment before realizing that Robin had actually asked her a question.

"Oh! Uh...I'm not exactly sure." Maria rubbed the back of her head. "There's a lot of things that could get them to come here, but I don't think that any of them are going to happen anytime soon."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Everybody's got their own problems, so I don't think they're going to want to try and hunt me down without making sure that their own issues are taken care of first. I don't know what organization with plans for world domination could end up causing Trainers trouble, for instance, but there's usually at least one of _those_ around, so I probably won't be hearing from my teammates anytime soon."

"And the Keyblades?"

Maria shrugged. "Combating the Heartless. I don't think they're going to be gone forever, and there's always a danger of a negative emotion of some kind catching a villain in its snare. As for the other people that I can barely remember from the other memories I managed to find...." The amnesiac trailed off, her blue eyes seeming to darken at the memory of what she had managed to recover. "I don't know what it is that could be keeping them from finding me. It seemed like there was something really bad going on when I found out I was able to shift back and forth between that armored form and this one."

Robin hummed thoughtfully. "And the girl who you're holding that crystal for?"

Maria's dark expression sobered somewhat into a more concerned expression as her brow furrowed. "...I'm not sure _where_ Myra's at. All I can remember of her is that the crystal belongs to her, but I don't know where I met her or where she could be. I just hope that she hasn't run into any trouble. It feels like I should be concerned for her, somehow...."

"Hopefully, you'll be able to recover that part of yourself soon, correct?"

"Yeah....hopefully." Maria's hand moved to her closed memory journal, and she rested her hand on the cover. She clenched it into a fist a moment later. "What I don't get right now, though, is that I didn't get memories back from a specific adventure a few days ago. It's just...random information."

"Information is still important," Robin chided. "Even if it might not make sense at first."

"True. But that doesn't mean that I can't be frustrated about it." Maria scowled, then let out a sigh. "Most of what I managed to get back talks about how much I hate the idea of being forced under the control of anybody. I guess that kind of thing is important, but I wish that I could figure out why that is."

"Maybe you'll be able to discover that in the future."

"Nami-san, Maria-san, Robin-chan, I've prepared a delicious dinner for you! Hey, you idiots, get up here!"

"FOOD!" Luffy scrambled away from Usopp and Chopper while Maria closed the book in her lap and rose to her feet.

"We may as well get in there before they eat everything," Maria commented, looking over at Robin.

"Right." Robin smiled, amused at the thought.

The two of them then started for the galley as Luffy barged through the door, chanting something about meat.

Maria decided to force any thoughts of her memories into the back of her mind. After all, she knew that they were going to come back eventually. Why worry about them today?

**Time Break**

That night wasn't exactly a fun one for Maria.

**Memory Break**

_I shook the thoughts out of my head and summoned my staff, barely registering that the green circuits had overtaken more of it than they had the day before. "Gyro-waist is mine," I muttered._

_"Gyro-waist?!" A short figure wearing red armor with a thin waist a gigantic sword gave me a look of shock. "How dare you!" He charged, his blade becoming coated in fire._

_Okay. That was an unexpected development...but also a delightful one. Grinning, I stopped his blade short with the staff, then watched as the fire moved along the staff and onto my arms._

_"Maria!" A gray-and-red-armored teen exclaimed in alarm, dodging an attack from a figure wearing what looked like a tree. That figure's attack was tree trunks, as I had expected._

_I let out a laugh. "Don't worry about me, Blues! I'm fine!" A malicious grin appeared on my face. "In fact, I'm more than fine."_

_The fire made its way up my arms, licking greedily as I absorbed them - an after-effect of me getting turned into a Vulpix at the hands of a space-time warp. The absorbed flames turned into an energy boost, which I promptly sent directly back through the staff, planning on releasing it as an electrical attack to set the large sword-guy's systems off balance._

_To my shock, the staff only sparked weakly...then disappeared in a shower of sparks, forcing me to move quickly as the sword came flying at me._

_I let out a growl. "Great. This is not a good time for me to lose access to that." I continued to move back, watching the sword's movements while I tried desperately to bring back my staff. "Come on, come on!" My right fist - the hand that the staff appears in - clenched as I sent a great amount of energy into it..._

**Memory Break**

_"Anyway, in order to keep you alive, I...managed to transfer your memories into a robot prototype I had been working on. The crystalline shard you had been carrying with you at the time was my best bet to use as a power source."_

_"So it wasn't destroyed!" Maria looked down at her armored chest. "You just needed an excuse as to where it went."_

**Memory Break**

            _Almost instantly, Maria felt a presence that she did_ not _want in her head, and it was doing things to her head that she did_ not _want done. And it was_ painful _._

_Painful enough to get her to scream out as she started to try and work against what was invading her systems. Already, the teenager was working at blocking integral data from the program's access. Things like...what sort of effect the creations of the present would have on the future._

_"What have you done?!" Blues roared. He launched himself at a man with bat wing-like protrusions of hair on either side of his head and started to shake him by gripping his shoulders while a boy in blue armor and what looked like a ninja ran for the chamber and started to go over it to see if they could release Maria. "What is in the program you're sending her?!"_

_"You know about it already!" the gray-haired man barked back. He looked angered, but in truth he was most likely terrified. Maria could hear his voice go high-pitched, even as her systems and screams started to make even more noise than that of the world outside her prison. "It's something that I managed to tweak to perfection!"_

_"BAKA!" the ninja roared. "Your tweaking will destroy her!"_

_"We've got to do something!" the blue-armored boy exclaimed, panicked. He reached down and started to pull at the base of the chamber; Maria could barely feel her position in the air move, even though it was clear by her vision that she had suddenly dropped about an inch._

_"There is nothing you can do," the robot ninja replied grimly, grabbing the boy's shoulder and pulling him back. "It's...too late."_

_Maria shut her eyes tightly as the pain increased; data ran across her vision as the program continued to invade her systems. Already, she was on the verge of completely losing control of her motor functions, and her vision and hearing were starting to get blurry and muted._

_"Get out of here!" Maria yelled as loudly as she dared. She could feel that her core temperature had exploded outward, encasing her in flames as though it was a last-ditch effort of defense._

_"Maria!" the boy exclaimed, worry clear in his voice._

_"Don't - grrrgh - worry about me! Tell the Doc what - argh - happened! Maybe..." Maria took in a breath, now starting to pant heavily. Her tongue started to feel heavy. "Maybe there's...a way to...get rid of it."_

_Wily let out a laugh. "As if! The program is perfect!"_

_"There are always flaws!" Maria roared in response. She could feel the darkness creeping in at the edge of her mind. "Proto! GO!"_

_And with another, high-pitched shriek, she blacked out._

**Memory Break**

"Gah!" Maria sat upright in bed, gripping at her chest and panting heavily. It felt like phantom pains were running up and down her spine and throbbing in her chest. Her vision was strangely blurry as she looked around frantically, trying to find something that was familiar so that she knew where she was.

"Maria, are you all right?"

Maria blinked a couple times, clearing up her vision. When she found herself staring at Chopper, Maria could feel her heart rate slowing as she let out a sigh.

"Y-yeah, I'm all right," Maria replied carefully. She dropped her hand from her chest.

"Didn't sound like it a moment ago," Nami commented, frowning at the teenager. "You were screaming like someone had sent a stake through your heart -- and half of what you were saying didn't sound like anything at all."

Maria looked over at the navigator, then scanned the rest of the room as she realized that the entire crew was -- once again -- in the girls' quarters and were all looking at Maria with concerned, frowning expressions.

Maria's eyebrows scrunched together in what looked like she really didn't like what Nami had just said. She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. "It was just a bad dream."

"A vision?" Robin asked thoughtfully.

"No."

Maria's voice came out with so much conviction that it caused the rest of the crew to look at her with mixed expressions of surprise and concern.

"Those were memories then, right?" Chopper moved forward on the bed so that he was sitting in Maria's lap. "How bad were they?"

"...." Maria looked away from the reindeer, rubbing her right arm with her left. "...pretty bad. Maybe not as bad as what I remembered when Perona sent her ghosts through my gut, but they were still pretty bad."

Robin's expression shifted a little. Maria remembered what had happened when the ghost went through her the first time and shuddered, but then formed herself to calm down.

"It's got something to do with what Shiki said after we ended up getting separated," Maria continued carefully. "I'd thought he was lying when he said he couldn't make people float...but then he said that he couldn't make _humans_ float. The way he said it made me wonder what exactly he meant, and I think I just found out why what he said made me say so uneasy." She looked over at Chopper. "It's got something to do with the blue stuff I've got instead of blood."

Chopper's eyes widened.

"What Shiki said -- and what my memories have told me...." Maria paused, then took in a breath. "I'm not human."

That statement caused an uneasy silence to gather in the crew.

"Not human?" Franky repeated. "How is that possible? If you were a cyborg, then there's got to be at least a little bit of human in you."

Maria shuddered slightly. "As far as I can remember...when I was recovering from our fight against Shiki, I remembered an accident that I ended up getting into. It's not exactly clear, though -- I don't know _how_ the guy I was up against was able to make his hands disappear completely in order to make cannons -- but I basically should have died then...but I didn't. Instead, someone saved my life and...." The girl shrugged. "I guess because of that, I'm not human anymore."

_"I'm...not exactly human."_

The statement she had remembered back in Water 7 was coming back to haunt Maria with a vengeance, it seemed.

Zoro snorted. "Yeah, right."

"That can't be right...." Nami looked thrown off by Maria's explanation.

"Well...it _would_ explain why your blood isn't really blood," Chopper commented, frowning. "And why you smell like you do."

"What do you mean?" Maria gave the reindeer a curious look.

"Well, when I first met you, you smelled a lot like metal, so I thought that you must work with it or something. When you didn't say anything about it when you joined the crew, I thought that it was just because you were living near the shipwrights on Water 7. But you've still smelled like metal, even though you've been near the Berry trees more than anything else. Now that you say you probably aren't human...."

Chopper trailed off, and Maria knew where the reindeer was going.

"Hold on," Franky spoke up. "That doesn't make any sense. Maria looks just as human as the rest of us -- how can she smell like _metal?_ "

"It's that armor, isn't it," Robin murmured.

Maria nodded in the direction of the archeologist. "That's what I'm thinking, too. I don't know how, but that armored form that I can take on has some sort of connection with the fact that I'm not human anymore. I'm not sure what exactly it is yet, though."

"Are you a robot?"

Maria turned her head upon hearing Luffy's voice, locking her wide, curious blue eyes with her captain's intense gaze. "A _robot_...? Um...." Maria frowned, trying to wrack her brain for answers that she figured were locked in there somewhere. A moment later, she let out a dejected sigh. "...I don't know, Luffy. Maybe? I won't know more until I get more of my memories back."

Luffy gained a dejected look on his face while Usopp scowled unhappily. Maria couldn't help but feel a little confused at the looks she was getting from the both of them. Did they _want_ her to be a robot...?

"Hey, Chopper -- what do they smell like besides metal?" Maria asked, moving attention to the reindeer.

"Oh!" Chopper looked up at Maria with a bright smile. "You smell like your Berry trees and books!"

Maria smiled back at the crew's doctor. "That sounds like a pretty nice combination. I wish I had a nose like yours so that I could tell what people smelled like."

Chopper gained a delighted expression and started dancing around the bed, exclaiming something about how saying something like that wouldn't make him happy. Maria chuckled as he danced about, looking amused herself.

"This is all very confusing," Brook commented. "Maria-san, do you know anything about yourself that is concrete and makes sense?"

Maria blinked at the question, and the others looked at the skeleton for a moment before Nami gained an expression of realization.

"Oh yeah, that's right -- I completely forgot that I didn't include half the stuff Maria remembers in my log books," Nami realized. "Brook, every time she says that she's gotten a memory back, it's almost as though things become even more convoluted."

"It's not _my_ fault that you guys haven't heard of Pokemon or Keyblades," Maria responded, folding her arms across her chest in a grumpy manner. "And now there's all this new stuff going through my head, too -- and it seems to me that I've had some _bad_ experiences with mad scientists in the past, from what I can remember. That's why I reacted to that stupid clown of Shiki's like I did."

"You think so?" Usopp said. A slight frown came over his face a moment later. "You know...now that you mention it, it does kinda make at least some sense."

"Of course it would to you," Sanji muttered.

"I mean it, Sanji!" Usopp glared at the cook before looking at the others. "Maria got really mad just because the clown managed to get some of Maria's blood so that he could study it. And, judging from the holes that she ended up leaving behind in the palace before we got there -- and the damage she ended up doing afterward...maybe she kept a lot of it pent up."

The others looked at Maria, and she shrugged helplessly.

"Maybe? I can't remember enough to be sure." Maria sent an apologetic look at Luffy, but he didn't seem to concerned with how Maria's memory recovery was going.

"Okay, this is _definitely_ a lot more than I wanted to think about," Nami groused, rubbing her head as though she was getting a headache herself. "How about we all go to bed and sleep on this? Hopefully, you can come up with some better answers." The navigator sent Maria an annoyed look, and the blue-eyed girl shrugged again.

"I don't think I'll be getting any more memories back tonight, but I'll see what I can do," Maria admitted in a "I'll-do-what-I-can-but-don't-expect-anything" manner.

"Don't worry about it," Luffy spoke up. "We'll figure stuff out, right?" Everyone looked at their captain as he added, "Maria's memories'll come back. We just gotta wait."

Chopper blinked blankly for a moment, taking in what his captain had said. A moment later, he gave a vigorous nod. "Right! We can't push this. If we're going to get answers, we're just going to have to wait until Maria thinks she can tell us. Right?" He looked over at the amnesiac.

"Sounds good to me," Maria agreed, nodding.

Luffy slammed his fist into an open palm and nodded. "Right."

Nami was starting to look increasingly annoyed. "All right. Now that we have _that_ settled...how about you morons all get out of our room before I have to kick you out myself?" She raised a fist threateningly.

Luffy was out the door first, surprisingly, followed by Franky. Zoro lingered in the doorway for a moment when Sanji said he wanted to stay and teased the cook before disappearing from sight with an angry blond at his heels, and Brook was kicked out by Nami herself when the skeleton decided to ask -- _once again_ \-- if he could see someone's panties.

Nami sighed irritably as she shut the door. "Men." The way she said it sounded like she had just about enough of the other crewmembers' antics.

Maria chuckled, as did Robin, and the amnesiac commented, "Boys will be boys. There really isn't anything that we can do about it." She collapsed fully onto her bed and let out a sigh. "I don't know why I know that, but I do."

Robin chuckled. "Maybe it's because you've interacted with boys before."

"Well, I can remember a few of them, but my reasoning for their actions seems to go further back...." Maria trailed off, frowning. "But I can't remember why that is. Hopefully it'll come back, though."

"They should," Nami commented, climbing into her own bed. "Those memories of yours have been causing more than enough trouble if we can't sleep at night."

"Um...sorry?"

Nami waved the comment off. "Just try not to have so many nightmares that sound like you're dying right in the middle of them, and I think we'll be fine." With that, the navigator turned over in her sleep and fell asleep.

Maria flinched a little at the comment, remembering what she had been dreaming about before she had woken up. "Try to not sound like I'm dying, huh...."

She wasn't sure how well that was going to work out, but Maria supposed that she could give it a _try_....

**Bonus: Maria's Journal**

I'm really worried about what I'm remembering now. It's mostly been a lot of scattered pieces of painful things that I don't think I particularly _want_ to remember. Those memories of me being stuck in what looks like a lab...and with all the pain that I ended up feeling...what did I really go through?

And who really _are_ Blues, that ninja, and the little boy wearing blue armor? They don't look like anyone else that I've ever seen before....

_(The following pages show partially shadowed sketches of figures wearing different styles of armor, with notes near them as to what they should be colored: gray and red, different shades of blue, purples that can fade into the shadows...and a full sketch of Maria wearing her own armor, a look of confusion on her face as she looks out of the page at the reader)_

I'm really worried. What happened in the past that puts me into these kinds of situations?

Do I even _want_ to remember?

**Moves Rediscovered**

**Level ???: White Flare -- 25 Percent: Fire Spark**

**Level 3 -- ??? Form**

_A strange suit of red, gray, and orange armor appears and covers Maria from the neck down for a short period of time._

**Level 4 -- Berserker Mode**

_Maria loses control of herself and becomes an angry warrior, tearing through enemies and structures like they were made of paper. Because she uses so much fire, she is knocked out for an undetermined amount of time afterwards._


End file.
